On an elevator to the top
Print Edition
Hsu Tsoming never expected that he would be still working and living in Songjiang District 20 years after he and his team were dispatched to the Chinese mainland to develop a Taiwan company’s business.
As president of Yungtay Elevator, a Taiwan-grown electronics equipment enterprise, Hsu was among the first batch of overseas entrepreneurs in the Chinese mainland.
“Songjiang is my hometown today,” he says.
The 58-year-old has witnessed the city’s dramatic urban development and that of the country’s elevator industry.
Having been at Yungtay for more than 30 years, Hsu has worked in almost every department from IT support to auditing, accounting and after-sales, climbing the corporate ladder step by step.
In 1999, Hsu was assigned to Shanghai to help expand Yungtay’s business.
At the time, China had just been through the global economic crisis and Hsu sensed signs of a revival.
In 2000, the real estate market was open and mortgages were allowed, which gave a strong boost to home sales as well as the elevator industry.
Hsu grasped the opportunity, rolled up his sleeves and decided to go all out.
Within two years, he and his team had grabbed almost 7 percent of the Chinese market, closely following the four big foreign brands.
But a turning point came in 2005 when a major stockholder withdrew investment and Yungtay had to go it alone.
Market share quickly dropped to 2.6 percent, and the enterprise was in danger of being eclipsed by foreign competition.
“Some of the managers wanted to quit and went back to Taipei. We had a hard time,” Hsu recalled.
However, the financial crisis in 2008, ironically, came to the rescue. As foreign companies stopped taking orders, Yungtay took the opposite track by accepting as many as possible. “I noticed the central government spared no efforts to develop infrastructure construction, and I believed these measures would take effect,” he said.
Hsu was right. Capital flowed into the real estate industry and the rising demand for elevators brought Yungtay back to life.
“China’s elevator industry still has large growth potential, though it had a little twist in 2015, and I’m quite optimistic about it,” he said.
China has about 8 billion square meters of old buildings built between 1980 and 2000, 70 percent of them without elevators. One conservative estimate was that there would be the need for some 3.5 million elevators in the future.
The country’s total annual sales have risen from 760,000 elevators in 2015 to 809,000 last year, while exports picked up and exceeded 80,000 in 2017.
At the same time, the number of Chinese elevator factories had grown to 700 by the end of last year, attracting more investment and more competition. An important battlefield is elevator maintenance, which enjoys huge profit margins.
“To train more maintenance workers able to offer professional, quality service is absolutely a trend for the industry,” Hsu said.
Since Yungtay set up in Shanghai, safety has been a priority.
It launched the world’s first Chinese-language remote monitoring system, established a training center for installation and maintenance, and issued China’s first elevator safety insurance.
“Yungtay’s core principle is always safety, and all the things we’re doing — R&D, maintenance and support facilities — center around safety,” Hsu said.
The company developed and patented a braking force detection system and an automatic uncontrolled operation rescue system that can evacuate passengers quickly in the case of an emergency.
Yungtay also established a laboratory that simulates extreme weather for fatigue tests, the industry’s first in China. It is also famed for its quality control. It carries out a total of 925 tests for every single part from design and production to assembly.
Yungtay now has factories in Shanghai, Tianjin and Chengdu, manufacturing 30,000 elevators a year.
Hsu is grateful for the support of local governments, which give guidance on tax and coordination with the land office.
“Yungtay is a China-grown brand. It had good days and hard times, but what I’m striving to do today is to polish the brand and let it shine again,” Hsu said.
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