St. Shine Optical (Taiwan)
[2014-06] Taiwan contact lens sector: Clear vision on China growth
[2014-06] Moat Report Asia:
The fifth largest contact lens manufacturer in the world and the #1 global ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) company. St Shine has its own brand Ticon sold in Taiwan with a market share of 30%, #2 behind Johnson & Johnson, and contributes 25% of group’s sales. 75% of St Shine’s revenue come from the ODM business. The majority of the ODM customers are in Japan which account for over 50% of the total ODM business. Specialty lens (mainly color lens) contributed around 50% of the group revenue (FY13; 55% in 1Q14).
Unique process IP in flexible manufacturing system and know-how to handle large-scale color lens and complex orders: The manufacturing cast-molding of contact lens integrates different fields of science including polymer chemistry, physics, optics, engineering, materials control, process control, microbiology, and, injection molding. The Big Four players have highly automated manufacturing lines to produce large volumes of contact lens. However, the use of such machines is limited in color lens manufacturing as the various hues and designs applied make quality checks much harder than in the case of non-color lens. This limitation has kept the Big Four brands away from the color lens market. The unique cast-molding technology has given St Shine tremendous flexibility in product design, increased quality and better-than-competitive costs.
Proprietary tracking system to limit damage/loss from potential product recall = Win trust of ODM customers: St Shine also developed a proprietary system of tracking the manufacturing process of different sets of product so that if a quality issue arose, when and where the problem set of products was being produced could be swiftly identified, thus diminishing the scale and cost of product recall. Such a system has helped St Shine win the long-term trust of its ODM customers to place stable large orders. The Big Four giants do not have such a system and have to incur substantial losses from product recalls.
Sticky ODM customer relationship: St Shine has cultivated long-term relationship with its ODM customers and the value chain of optical retailers and wholesalers. Its Japanese clients work exclusively with St Shine because of reliability and performance.
Loyal followers for own brand Ticon: Ticon has many loyal followers and support in Taiwan where it enjoys a 30% market share. The reason is its high quality: wearers of most other disposable contact lens brand will find their eyes tired after 8 hours or less, but find that they can wear for 15 hours and still feel their eyes are comfortable. St Shine has done research in understanding the bio-medical properties of eyes and has the complete and most comprehensive database of eyeball and optometric information of people in different countries around the world. This customer intelligence, in turn, enables St Shine to come up with better designs and products.
[2013-03] Taiwan contact lens sector: Clear opportunity in sight
[2012-05] Taiwan contact lens sector: All eyes on China