Beijing JHF Technology Company, the Chinese manufacturer of industrial digital inkjet machines for the signage and textile industries, has announced an aggressive global expansion plan for 2017. The impetus came from the company’s growth in 2016, when its annual revenue touched $65million, an increase of 70% over 2015. Beijing JHF ended 2016 with 10 channel partners in Asia and installation of over 30 its JHF range of industrial printers outside China. The company projects its annual revenue to exceed $200 million by 2018.
Beijing JHF Technology Company, established in 1997, offers three product lines – the Leopard, Vista and JHF. The JHF series is an industrial product line manufactured by using components procured from Germany, Netherlands, and Japan. The company has a 56,000 sqm manufacturing facility in Beijing devoted exclusively to the UV product line and a facility at Shanghai for producing the solvent product line. It has a distribution network across Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and South America, and an installed base of more than 15,000 machines worldwide.
To facilitate its expansion, the company has restructured its sales team for international markets outside China. Currently, it has a growing team based in Hong Kong, Singapore, and India handling the Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa regions. In 2017, it plans to consolidate its position in these regions while penetrating new markets and pushing for bigger market share in the US, Europe, and Latin America. The first step in this direction will be a demonstration facility for international customers to be operational in Bangkok, Thailand, in Q2 2017. The demo centre will house the latest JHF printers with trained staff to handle international prospects. Furthermore, a new manufacturing facility, four times the size of the current facility, is being setup to become operational in Q4 2017, in Shandong, near Beijing, to boost production of JHF printers.
Morgan Shi, president, Beijing JHF Technology Company, reminisced about the early days of building the company and the challenges he faced in establishing the brand in the Chinese market.
“As a pioneer in digital inkjet printing in China with a strong focus on R&D and product innovation, our mission has always been to become a world-class leading company. We identified our core competency while attempting to develop various printer components, faced with the choice between offering cheap, low-quality products and world-class products at high prices. We decided to go ahead with the latter option, to develop high-end UV printers and showcase China’s potential to the world. It didn’t seem a smart idea initially because it was difficult to sell a Chinese printer at or above the prices of leading global brands, especially in the domestic market.We were able to overcome those challenges through patience and persistence. When we didn’t sell any printer, we used the time to rectify mistakes and perfect our technology and products. At the time, we interacted with the printing industry and communicated to business owners that in order to survive, they had to become the ‘number one’ or the ‘only one’. It struck a chord with them and thus we began our journey toward excellence with their belief and support,” he explained.
Morgan pointed out that as the company expands globally, it faces a lot of similar challenges. “The JHF brand is relatively less known in international markets, and again, we have to work on changing the established perception of Chinese brands as cheap and low quality in international markets. I’d say we have the world’s best products in terms of precision, speed, quality, and stability. We invest over 10% of our revenue into R&D, and we have only one goal, which is to be the world number one in industrial printing solutions,” said Morgan.
