Qualitek-Delta’s Han sees rosy prospects for Philippine electronics sector

MANILA, Philippines - Qualitek-Delta aims to be a major supplier and world-class producer of soldering materials amid the country’s  growing  semiconductor industry.  

In an interview with The Star, Qualitek vice president for operations Martin Han says the Philippine semiconductor industry   is poised to grow even bigger due to  the strong global demand and continued innovation among industry players.

“It (semiconductor industry) will boom. It all depends on how the people in charge will position it. My objective is for us to take the opportunity now. The global market  is  looking for the next manufacturing giant. Thailand cannot be the next manufacturing hub because it is experiencing unrest.  Manufacturing needs to find a place. Vietnam, meanwhile, they cannot speak English well. This is the time for the Philippines to seize the moment,” Han says.

Qualitek was established in 1980 with its headquarters and manufacturing plant in Illinois, US as a world class manufacturer of soldering materials for electronics and microcircuit industries.

To cater to the growing business in the Asia Pacific region, Qualitek International established Qualitek-Delta Philippines Inc. in 1997 and started commercial operations in 1998. Qualitek-Delta’s facility, which is located inside the Bataan Economic Zone in Mariveles, has over 50,000 square feet of production area and manufactures the full line of Qualitek soldering products.

Han says  during the start of operations in 1998, Qualitek Delta  concentrated on  producing solder powder  in its facility in Bataan.

However, he said in the 2000s, there was a massive change in the market. “In 2000, we had a massive change in market. All the research and development for big manufacturing companies like Apple, Ford, and other major manufacturing companies are conducted in the US. They use different countries like China, Vietnam, India and the Philippines to manufacture other components using other contract manufacturers. During the early 90s, Singapore was the hub to do foreign business. While Singapore was growing, what happened was that they needed to migrate and that’s where China came in,” he says.

 “2000 saw the biggest market growth in history but in 2001, the market died. What happened was companies got scared, a lot of companies from the United States migrated their manufacturing to China. So, it changed. Instead of us manufacturing 24/7, there was a massive slowdown. So we saw a slowdown for the last five to six years,” he says.

As such, Han believes in the importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which gives the Philippines the potential to become the next manufacturing giant. He says the country’s next elected leaders must see to it that the Philippines is not left behind as far as the development of the manufacturing sector is concerned.

With the expected surge in global demand, Han says the company decided to expand its  output and upgrade its facility. “We’re expanding now. I just did a merger with  Taiwan’s Accurus. The merger happened in  August. Accurus specializes in metallurgy, its technology can go grade six, seven, eight, very very fine,” he says.

Han says he is eyeing to grow company revenues by another 200 percent with the introduction of new technology.

 “Since I’ve been here, I grew the business at least 200 percent in terms of revenues and market share. By 2015 to 2016, I’m looking to do another 200 percent, with the new technology, and the new alloy that we will be introducing,“  he says.