Since its inception in 2014 as a sub-brand of ENGEL Group, WINTEC has been growing from a little-known new brand with zero production value to a well-known brand with wide market recognition and rapidly growing sales, creating a new record in the establishment and growth of new injection molding machine brands. The establishment of WINTEC is a componential part of ENGEL Group's global strategy. How is howWINTEC developing now? In what ways has it reflected ENGEL Group's global layout? What are the future plans of WINTEC? This issue of "Cover Story" features an in-depth interview with Mark Feng, President of Sales and Services for WINTEC, with an eye to unveiling the mystery of WINTEC's soaring development.
Broad Media: As a world-famous European brand, ENGEL already boasts mature technologies and an extensive customer base. Why did ENGEL create the independent brand of WINTEC?
Mark Feng: The structure of global plastic machine market resembles an olivary nucleus, with mid- and low-end injection molding machines accounting for the vast majority of market shares. Whether in terms of technology, quality, or economic benefits, ENGEL injection molding machines are at the top of the market. According to ENGEL Group's fiscal year 2015 financial report, the Group reached a global sales of 1.25 billion euros (or about 9 billion RMB), the highest sales in the global industry. Due to the high-end quality of the equipment, the unit price is comparatively high.
ENGEL has no mid-end products in the global market, which, however, take up a large proportion of the market and have great market potentials. In addition, there is a rising demand for quality equipment in the mid-end market, which has an increasingly blurred boundary with the high-end market. In such a context, ENGEL Group established the sub-brand of WINTEC which has a different market positioning from that of ENGEL, so as to meet the standardization needs in the mid- to high-end market. In this way, ENGEL will have a richer product mix and higher potentials for market growth, making quality equipment readily available to customers.
Broad Media: How is WINTEC developing in the past two years? What are its highlights in market development?
Mark Feng: Over the past two years, WINTEC has achieved unexpected development. According to the existing financial reports, its sales value in 2016 is expected to grow by 40% over that of 2015.
Whether judging from the feedback of agents or customers, WINTEC is gaining rising market acceptance. WINTEC has established a network of agents across China, which currently constitutes its main marketing channel. WINTEC has won users' recognition in both the auto parts industry and the white goods industry, which accounts for 70% and 20%, respectively, of its customers.
At present, though automobile and white goods enterprises are suffering from increasingly low profit margin, they have mounting demands for manufactured goods and equipment performance. In an effort to help them reduce costs and enhance efficiency, we can provide users with practical solutions in improving productivity while reducing energy consumption and equipment footprint.
Broad media: Can you tell us about WINTEC and ENGEL's differences in technology and customer groups? What are your suggestions for customers?
Mark Feng: As we all know, most ENGEL injection molding machines are highly customizable with almost each model equipped with unique functions, thus offering especially rich functionality options to customers. When it comes to WINTEC, however, it produces standardized injection molding machines and serves to meet another part of market demand. At present, we only manufacture horizontal single color plastic injection molding machines. By reducing user options, we have also reduced production costs and delivery time. Our existing options can meet the needs of 90% customers in the mid-end market. For this reason, we have not only made a very accurate market positioning for ENGEL Group but also filled its gap in standard plastic injection molding machines.
Although WINTEC's target customers are mid-end market users, the technology and high quality of WINTEC will not be affected. For one thing, all our machines are designed at the Austrian headquarters, all technical engineers have worked in ENGEL for many years, and all core components of our machines are from top European suppliers. For another, to ensure the world-top quality of its mid- to high-end products, important structural parts such as molds and rods are also designed and manufactured by ourselves, and key processes including nitrogen treatment are completed in our own factories.
Compared with other mid-end equipment, WINTEC servo hydraulic two-platen injection molding machines enjoy better configuration, and our machines equipped with servo motor plus electronic variable displacement pumps can reduce energy consumption by over 60% than regular ones and over 20% than those equipped with servo motor plus fixed displacement pumps. In addition to our unique design which ensures zero friction between tie bar and moving platens, our machines are also equipped with linear guide to support the move of platens, contributing to their unrelenting accuracy during the 15-to-20 year life cycle, high repeatability, low consumption of hydraulic oil (about half that of its peers), short dry cycle time, higher open/close mold speed. Thanks to their high configuration and strictly controlled manufacturing process, the performance and quality of WINTEC injection molding machines can be recognized by its customers, which, coupled with its acceptable price, contributes to its high repeat purchase rate. That being so, after successively equipped with 17 of our machines, a customer from northern China has increased its production efficiency by more than 20%.
As a new brand, WINTEC was also leading the trend of intellectualization, which is at the core of Industry 4.0. Equipped with the famous Austrian KEBA injection molding machine control system as the single machine control system as well software developed by ENGEL itself, we can realize the linkage of multiple devices, i.e., administrators can realize in the office online monitoring, remote diagnosis, and automatic control of many equipments.
With its excellent quality and cost-efficiency, WINTEC has become a strong competitor in the mid-to high-end market.
Broad Media: What is ENGEL Group's strategic plan for WINTEC? How can the strategic planning be achieved in a step-by-step manner?
Mark Feng: ENGEL Group has a very clear positioning for WINTEC, i.e., to develop WINTEC into a global brand in the future, so that the Group can achieve dual brand operation and provide users with more choices.
As for its current marketing strategy, WINTEC plans firstly to establish itself in China and then gradually radiate to surrounding countries in potential markets; meanwhile provide technical support by exploiting ENGEL's service team. Though currently with only a factory (in Changzhou) in the world, WINTEC has expanded its market from China to Southeast Asia, West Asia, the Middle East, South Africa, and other regions. We also hope to promote the restructuring and upgrading and improve the level of the plastic manufacturing industry with the growing influence of WINTEC.
I believe that, with the increase of its brand popularity, WINTEC's sales will grow to about 5% of that of ENGEL Group and WINTEC will become one of the top brands in the mid-end market.
