The sneaker craze may very well have hit a peak in 2015. New Balance Japan Inc., a key driver of this high demand, saw 2015 (January–December) sales go up almost 30 percent over the previous year, with lifestyle shoes rising more than 40 percent. President Tomoo Tomita called 2015 a year in which his company benefitted from the sneaker craze....
Motoi Oyama, president and CEO of Asics Corp. (TYO:7936), explained the company’s recent performance as follows. Domestic sales fell by 1.5 percent to 101.2 billion yen ($890.8 million) largely due to sluggish performance of apparel. Overseas sales increased by 14.8 percent to 327.3 billion yen, which even after removing currency effects, represented a 10.2 percent increase. The proportion of global...
Sumitomo Riko Co. Ltd. (TYO:5191) has established in Poland a new company, SumiRiko Automotive Hose Poland Sp. z o. o. (SRK-HP), for the manufacturing and distribution of automotive hoses. The new company represents an investment of 10 million euro ($11 million). Located in the city of Sosnowiec, the company will commence operations in October of this year. Sumitomo Riko already...
Nitta Corp. (TYO:5186) has acquired Connect Conveyor Belting Inc., a Canadian fabricator and seller of belts based in Milton, Ontario. Since before the acquisition Connect has been fabricating and selling Nitta’s flat belts, such as the SEB (Super Endless Belt) and the Polybelt, which are used in mail handling equipment, printers, banking terminals and other machinery. Now Connect will become...
Nitta Corp. (TYO:5186) is strengthening its production and sales effort for heat piping used in urea selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems, which are drawing interest for their environmental advantages. One of the technologies that can be used to purify diesel engine emissions, urea SCR systems are rapidly being put to use not only in passenger vehicles, but also commercial vehicles...
Kinsei Rubber Industry Co. Ltd. has revealed that it has succeeded in developing tubing with ultra-thin walls under 0.5mm in thickness, using all of its compound rubber materials including fluororubber. According to Kinsei Rubber, they have previously been able to produce tubing with a wall thickness of 0.3mm using silicone rubber, but until now rubber compounds have generally required a...
