Ajinomoto to expand in Vietnam
business in Vietnam in a bid to significantly boost sales in the
next three years, according to a report.
The company plans to introduce new soups and soy-sauce based products to increase sales there by more than 50 per cent to Y10 billion yen (€69.4m) in three years, reported Nikkei.
Vietnam's seasoning market is growing at a pace of 20-30 per cent a year, and although competition is heating up, Ajinomoto aims to take the top share there as it has in Thailand, said the report.
Last year the company opened a new €200,000 seasonings facility in Thailand with a production capacity of 34,000 tons per year. The fermentation specialist said it would gain a 60 per cent market share of the flavour seasonings category in Thailand, growing annually at about 10 per cent.
The firm currently makes just over Y6 billion from its Vietnam business and has already begun test sales of mayonnaise. It is also promoting development of a new soy-sauced based seasoning for the Vietnamese market through the recently acquired Amoy Food, according to the Nikkei report.
Ajinomoto reported a 15 per cent drop in operating income for the year to 31 March, on the back of falling prices of lysine, an important amino acid-based product, and higher raw material prices.
However, net sales increased by 3 per cent for the to Y1,106.8 billion and the firm has said that it expects sales from foreign food operations to increase 22 per cent to Y121.5 billion in fiscal 2006. It expects the operations to yield an operating profit of Y6.6 billion, up 32 per cent on the year.
