Big plans for WD40 in the Asian Pacific region
KUCHING: Over the next five years, the WD- 40 company strives to attain sales revenue growth in Asia Pacific by implementing strategic plans and focus on its strategic growth initiatives.
According to the group’s regional director for Asia, Marcus Chen, one of its strategic initiatives is to grow WD- 40 Multi-Use Product.
“Every day, our tribe members wake up with one thing and purpose on their minds, take the blue and yellow can with a little red top to more places for more people that will find more uses more frequently.
“We ended fiscal year 2016 with global sales of WD- 40 Multi- Use Product of US$ 380.67 million.
“Our long-term growth target is to double our sales of WD- 40 MultiUse Product over the next 10 years, that is a target of approximately US$ 600 million. How? By doing exactly the same thing we’ve been doing for the last 10 years,” he explained to The Borneo Post.
“We are going to make more end users aware and we are going to make it easier for them to buy in a 176 countries and territories worldwide, in different trade channels.”
Representing 14 per cent of global sales, Chen said the Asian Pacific business is highly complex as there were many markets, cultures, currencies, and stages of developments to consider.
Despite this complexity, Asia Pacific Region delivered sales revenue of US$ 54 million in net sales for the group.
This was no easy feat, considering the various economic and political uncertainty throughout many parts of the region, as well as pricing pressure from the
Every day, our tribe members wake up with one thing and purpose on their minds, take the blue and yellow can with a little red top to more places for more people that will find more uses more frequently. Marcus Chen, WD-40 Asia regional director
strengthening of the US dollar.
“We continued to allocate valuable resources to create the awareness of WD- 40 Multi-Use Product throughout key Asian countries especially within the professional end users market as the region continue to experience rapid development and industrialisation,” Chen noted.
“In Malaysia, where we have been present here for more than 25 years, the focus now is slowly shifting to growing revenue from ‘doer enthusiasts’ segment especially on those who are into stuff like home or car maintenance and repair while not neglecting professional end- users from the industry sector and tradesmen.
“The growth opportunity for Asia-Pacific continues to be huge, and that’s what is most exciting for us in this region.”
In addition to growing WD- 40 Multi-Use Product, Chen said WD40’s second growth initiative is to grow the Specialist product line introduced back in 2011. To note, the line is best-in- class specialty products under the WD- 40 brand geared toward trade professional end users.
The initial product line included a Water-Resistant Silicone Lubri- cant, Protective White Lithium Grease, and Rust Release Penetrant Spray, containing Blu Torch Technology, a proprietary blend of synthetic additives.
“In Asia Pacific, we started to market and distribute WD- 40 Specialist into 10 key countries since 2014 and we have seen sales revenue grow steadily in the past three years.
“Our long-term target is to continue launching specific range of WD- 40 Specialist products to satisfy and meet specific uses of maintenance, repair and overhaul operation (MRO) of the professional end users market in designated Asian countries.
“Our long-term aim is to build up WD- 40 Specialist sales to more than 15 per cent revenue over Asia Pacific Region net sales. In global market, we believe we can grow WD- 40 Specialist to approximately US$ 125 million in revenue over the next 10 years.”