DR DIETER KRESS is personally travelling to the subcontinent to open a new plant in India.
With customers in the Asian growth market
1991–2025
MAPAL's presence and growth in Asia, as in Europe, is primarily initiated and driven by the booming automotive market. The fact that MAPAL is able to gain a foothold in Asia with its market specialities is also due to the support of major customers. And not just as a favour, but because they want to be able to rely on MAPAL's proven quality, flexibility and consulting expertise in the Far East as well.
THE PEAK OF GLOBALISATION
The first MAPAL subsidiary in Asia is established in South Korea. In 1991, MAPAL founded the joint venture MAPAL HiTECO with a South Korean partner. It is able to win the car manufacturer Hyundai as a customer and later also takes over the worldwide tool management for them. MAPAL creates further capacity in South Korea in 2001 with the takeover of the tool manufacturer SWS, which has been trading under the name MAPAL HTT (Hi-TechTools) since 2004.
In 1995, MAPAL founded the joint company GPT in Singapore with co-operation partners in order to create a strategically well-placed foothold for developing further customers in the large ASEAN market. It initially consists of three employees who primarily provide technical advice. It is later renamed MAPAL Asia. MAPAL Japan was founded in 1996. Although the site operates its own production facility, Japan initially remains a difficult place for MAPAL due to well-established competitors and specific sales characteristics.
MAPAL is initially represented in India by a commercial agency. Encouraged and supported by the customer Bosch, MAPAL opens a newly built production plant in Bangalore in 2000. Difficulties in finding enough qualified specialists at the booming location and a long strike prompt MAPAL to relocate to a newly built plant in Coimbatore in 2015. Other Asian countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia are supplied from there.
As more and more European car manufacturers set up large production plants in China, MAPAL takes the step into the upcoming “Middle Kingdom”. The Hsu family of entrepreneurs, already active as dealers for MAPAL in Taiwan and China, supports the direct market entry. Together with them, the companies MAPAL China and MAPAL PTS Taiwan are founded in 2000, both with their own production capacities. Today MAPAL also has subsidiaries in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Australia.
IN 1998, Dr Dieter Kress visits the location in Japan that was set up two years earlier and has its own production facility.
MAPAL PTS in Taiwan was founded in 2000 as part of a joint venture.
IN 2000, MAPAL set up a location in China with large manufacturing capacities for the booming market in the ‘Middle Kingdom’.
MAPAL has a sales representative in Thailand.
ON THE FIFTH CONTINENT, MAPAL is represented by an Australian sales agency.