The New Straits Times recently profiled the condom industry and Goh Miah Kiat who heads Malaysia based Karex Bhd (KLSE: KAREX) – the world’s biggest condom maker by volume. Karex Bhd, founded by the Goh family in Johor in 1988, started off in the rubber processing back in the 1960s. Today, the company produces four billion condoms annually, more than any other single manufacturer, accounting for 15% of the global market while brands such as Durex (marketed by Britain’s Reckitt Benckiser Group), Trojan (owned by the United States firm Church & Dwight) and Lifestyles (by Ansell Ltd) account for 25% of the global condom market. All told, industry consultants estimate the global condom market will be worth $6 billion in 2015 or about 27 billion condoms.
Goh was quoted in the article as saying:
“Asia is going to create a lot of demand because our population is young. When we got into the condom business about 25 years ago, it was pretty much a dirty word. Today, things have changed.”
Karex Bhd is ramping up capacity to six billion pieces by the end of 2015 with an RM80 million ($23.9 million) eco-friendly factory that is being built in Pontian, Johor.
The company also recently bought a 55% stake in Boston-based Global Protection Corp for $6.6 million with the latter granting the former the exclusive rights to expand its ONE condom (now the fourth most popular brand after Durex, Trojan and Lifestyles) into Asia, North Africa and the Middle East.
To read the whole article, Condoms no more a dirty business, go to the website of the New Straits Times.
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