TAESUNG, which is a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) equipment manufacturer located in Ansan, is having an extremely busy season as orders for its equipment is coming in continuously. “We had shipped out 45 lines from January to April this year.” said CEO Kim Jong-hak of TAESUNG. “This is a performance that is more than twice better than same period of last year.”
TAESUNG manufacturers scrubbing instrument and wet equipment. Scrubbing instrument is an instrument that finely polishes surface of thin copper plates which are materials of PCB. Wet equipment takes care of develop, etching, and strip processes. These equipment is the ones that are responsible for ‘front-end process’ which is the most important process in production of PCBs.
Reason why TAESUNG is having an extremely busy season is because PCB industries, which are front-end industries, are enjoying favorable factors from Apple. As Apple has decided to use OLED panels for its new iPhone that is expected to be released this year, there have been huge demands for PCBs that are required for OLED panels. Even though South Korean PCB manufacturers won entire orders from Apple for PCBs, they had to extend their production lines due to enormous amount of supply of PCBs that they have to manufacture and orders for equipment that is needed for extension of production lines are coming into TAESUNG. TAESUNG made $17.6 million (20 billion KRW) in sales last year and is projected to make about $39.6 million (45 billion KRW) this year. Amount of its sales that are guaranteed for first half of this year already surpassed $17.6 million.
“RFPCB (Radio Frequency PCB) is the PCB that is used for OLED displays and it is very complicated to manufacture RFPCB.” said CEO Kim. “Because South Korean PCB manufacturers have advanced technical skills, it feels like we are also benefiting from them.”
TAESUNG is a company that is not known well to public. However it is a recognizable small giant company in PCB equipment industries. TAESUNG made and has supplied its own scrubbing instrument and wet instrument in South Korean market that used to be dominated by Japanese and German products. In spite of being a relative newcomer, its equipment was able to replace imported equipment due to its superior performance. As a result, it has grown into a company that occupies 90% of South Korean market for scrubbing instrument and 40% of South Korean market for web instrument.
It is not an exaggeration that most of South Korean PCB manufacturers such as Samsung Electro-Mechanics, LG Innotec, Youngpoong Electronics, and Interflex are TAESUNG’s customers. Taiwan’s Foxconn, China’s Zhen Ding Technology, Japan’s IBIDEN, and Germany’s Schweizer Electronic are also using TAESUNG’s equipment. By supplying its equipment to these companies, it has written a new record of re-exporting PCB equipment to Japan and Germany where PCB equipment was manufactured initially. “From performance, our equipment does not fall behind of other equipment.” said CEO Kim with confidence.
Road to establishing TAESUNG was not easy for CEO Kim as it required hard work and effort. After working as an engineer for machinery design after graduation, CEO Kim started his own business for automated equipment in Cheongju, which is his hometown, in 1990. However he failed twice and lost his work and house and was left with $176 (200,000 KRW). With this money, he went to Ansan. At that time, there were many companies that were manufacturing PCBs for home appliances and they were using expensive imported equipment. By believing that he would be successful if he was able to make his own PCB equipment, he only slept two hours a day and had worked on developing this equipment. Such equipment has made TAESUNG today.
CEO Kim is working hard in pioneering foreign markets. Especially he is concentrating on Chinese market as he usually stays in China for about 20 days per month. “About 80% of entire output of PCBs is concentrated on Asian region including China.” said CEO Kim. “We established a production base in China in 2014 and our goal is to become a clear-cut global company by going after global PCB manufacturers that are in Chinese market and Chinese PCB manufacturers at the same time.”
Staff Reporter Yun, Keonil | benyun@etnews.com