Growing Leaders
For the last 25 years, Malaysia has been a leading player in the rubber glove industry worldwide. The top rubber glove companies in Malaysia are expected to supply about 60% to 65% of the world’s rubber glove necessity. Malaysia is a home to the top three main glove producers in the world, and the biggest of these is Top Glove Corp Bhd. Top Glove has an existing annual capacity of 33 billion pieces and orders an estimated global market share of 23%. Founded in 1991, Top Glove Corp Bhd started out with one factory and three production lines. It then worked on a massive expansion plan to become the world’s largest rubber glove manufacturer. Today it has 371 production lines in 18 of glove manufacturing factories located in Malaysia, Thailand and China. Top glove has put a great deal of importance on research and development to make sure continual enhancement in its product quality and production efficiency. In order to stay in advance of the curve in product development, the company collaborated directly with government agencies and ministries to keep itself side by side of the latest growth in rubber research technology. It has now got itself a reputation of being one-stop glove sourcing centre presenting a wide and complete range of high quality, high value added and cost effective rubber gloves for the medical, food and services, high technology and industrial markets. Top Glove also has two latex concentrate plants in Thailand with a combined ability of 88,100 tonnes a year. It exports its products to more than 180 countries, including the US, UK, Japan, and India. About 20% of the company’s revenue came from its sales overseas for the year 2009. One advantage that local glove manufacturers have which has allowed them to grow their company globally is a constant supply of raw materials such as rubber. This advantage also shared by other manufacturers in countries producing rubber such as Thailand and Indonesia. The founder and chairman, Tan Sri Lim Wee Chai