Machine-tool Firms Enjoy Influx of Orders

Taipei, May 8, 2008 (CENS)--Taiwan's leading listed makers of machine tools, including Tongtai Machine & Tool Co., Awea Mechantronic Co., Goodway Machine Corp. and Falcon (Chevalier) Machine Tools Co., have acquired orders that can fill production lines for three up to nine months.

Of them, Awea has seen orders received in the first quarter alone exceed 70% of its annual goal. In the beginning of April, Awea introduced a slate of new product lines when inaugurating its new plant in Central Taiwan Science Park.

C.W. Kang, Awea president, said his company has recently won big-ticket orders from Italy, the U.S., mainland China and Turkey for newly introduced large-sized machining centers featuring prolonged X-axis travel. So far, the company sees a backlog of orders amount to NT$2.7 billion (US$88.81 million), meeting 72% of this year's sales goal of NT$3.7 billion (US$121.71 million).

With sales growing 62% year-on-year in the first two months of this year, Tongtai continued to receive over NT$600 million (US$19.73 million) orders in March. At present, the company has NT$3 billion (US$98.68 million) in backlog of orders as of the end of March, representing a whopping 79% year-on-year growth from a year earlier.

Based in Kaohsiung City of southern Taiwan, Tongtai is one of Taiwan's leading manufacturers of precision machine tools. Over the past several years, the company has engaged in the production of PCB (printed circuit board) drilling machines. The company said it has recently received orders from European Union nations, Eastern Europe and Russia. The company boasted it received orders for 140 units of PCB drilling machines in the first quarter of this year, double that posted in the same period of last year.

Goodway noted since the beginning of this year, it has seen substantial growth in shipment of multi-task machine tools to Russia, United Kingdom and Germany. At present, the multi-task machine tools account for 45% of its total shipment. Orders for such machine tools the company has received will keep its production lines busy for three months.

Despite its concentration in the U.S. marketplace, Falcon wasn't adversely affected by the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis in the first quarter of this year. The company said the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis won't surface until the second half of this year. The company said it has acquired orders to fully occupy production lines for the entire second half of this year.