Goodway Machine, Taiwan's Most Profitable Manufacturer

Taipei, Feb. 27, 2008 (CENS)--Goodway Machine Corp., Taiwan's leading manufacturer of CNC lathes, posted NT$6.83 (US$0.21 at US$1:NT$31.5) in after-tax earnings-per-share last year, becoming the island's most profitable listed machine-tool concern. The company is followed by its subsidiary--Awea Mechantronic Co. which saw EPS reach NT$6.58 (US$0.2) last year.

Edward Yang, chairman of both Goodway and Awea, said both companies will have good performance with annual sales growing over 20% year-on-year this year because of consistent influx of orders. He said Goodway currently has NT$750 million (US$23.8 million) orders in hand and Awea NT$2 billion (US$63.49 million).

Goodway said it registered NT$2.416 billion (US$76.69 million) in sales last year, up 22% from a year earlier. The company posted NT$667 million (US$21.17 million) and NT$518 million (US$16.44 million) in pretax and after-tax earnings, respectively last year.

The company saw January sales grow 39.64% year-on-year to reach NT$205 million (US$6.5 million) from NT$147 million (US$4.6 million) a year earlier.

Awea sid it posted NT$3.39 billion (US$107.61 million) in sales last year, up 8.3% from the previous year. The company registered NT$661 million (US$20.98 million) and NT$658 million (US$20.88 million) in pretax and after-tax earnings, respectively last year. The company saw January sales grow 6.19% year-on-year to reach NT$297 million (US$9.42 million).

Poised as a leading manufacturer of CNC lathes, over the past few years Goodway has been devoted to diversify product lines. For instance, the company will introduce Swiss-type vertical lathes, boxway vertical machining centers which will be debuted sometime in the second quarter of this year.

Awea's new plant in central Taiwan Science-based Industrial Park will be inaugurated sometime in March this year which is expected to help it boost production capacity and sales this year.

For instance, Awea had an annual production capacity of 40 C-type machining center last year. With the inauguration of the new plant, the company will immediately see monthly capacity for the product increase to over 70 units. The company has set a goal to see monthly production capacity for the product rise to 100 units by the end of June this year.