With all the talk of High Tech, the richest person is a shoemaker, a traditional industry.
The other surprise is the ASE company family (a local Kaohsuing company) seems tops the wealth list in tech.
3 Likes
Wait, are you saying the country of entrepreneurs cooks the books and presents a story catering.to facebook type psychologies to make people accept following environmental catastophes?
Surely not!?!
And he started on a pig farm. Another example of Taiwan OEM business.
148th richest person in the world.
When Zhang Congyuan started his sneaker business more than three decades ago, he couldn’t afford a regular factory, so he converted a pig farm next to paddy fields in western Taiwan.
Today, the founder of [Huali Industrial Group] is worth more than $13 billion,
3 Likes
Never heard of him , amazing.
2 Likes
Again richest in Taiwan.
Started his sneaker business less than 40 years ago.
He outpaces more Taiwanese familiar names on the Taiwan business scene, including Want Want China Times owner Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) listed with a net worth of US$7.8 billion, Chang Chun petrochemical group founder Suhon Lin (林書鴻) with US$7.2 billion, Foxconn Technology Group founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) with US$6.9 billion, and Quanta Computer founder Barry Lam (林百里) with US$5.9 billion,
Zhang ranks at No. 163 on the global list. He and his family run Huali Industrial Group, which makes shoes for global brands such as Nike, Puma, and Vans.
2 Likes
Taiwan’s got 2 other big-size listed shoemakers.
Pou Chen (stock code 9904) and Feng Tay (9910).
Together, these 3 got a big lock on the global OEM shoe trade.
4 Likes
my own take is that these companies stifle Taiwanese innovation. its a cut throat business, labor intensive and focused on cutting costs for the western brands.
they make shit loads of money, but dont produce in Taiwan, insteas they set up factories in poorer countries.
their success then drives other Taiwanese entrepreneurs to want to continue doing oem (be it for shoes or electronics ) instead of developing global Taiwanese brands.
5 Likes
They make money for the shareholders that’s about it I guess. You don’t see hear of designers or marketers for their shoes for instance and yes vast majority made overseas under rough conditions.
3 Likes
Does he live here?
1 Like
And does his family live here?
These guys sure keep a low profile.
2 Likes
They certainly do. When you’re filthy rich, you typically do some community engagement, donate to charities or direct on some non-profit boards or I don’t know something. At least have the appearance you are giving back. Can anyone more apt in Mandarin see if he does anything philanthropic locally?
Perhaps the family are enjoying the benefits of dual citizenship in some other abode?
1 Like
i kinda like that they are stealth billionaires. its better than having flashy and obnoxious ones 
1 Like
Almost all of their operations are overseas. They are not stifling anything. If they didn’t do what they are doing some Vietnamese or Chinese company would do it and none of the profits would come back to Taiwan.
Domestic OEM business I might agree with you though it’s still slightly more complicated. After all TSMC is sort of an OEM too and no one would say TSMC is stifling innovation.
2 Likes
Their operations used to be in Taiwan, but instead of growing the local version of Puma or Adidas or Under Armour, they just moved to Vietnam and Myanmar. the money doesnt flow back to Taiwan, the money is probably funneled through many off-shore companies and very little tax is actually paid here. Taiwan as a whole doesnt benefit from this business, only people working / owning that company.
i also dont fully agree with your TSMC example. first of all, we must remember TSMC is only one company, big and important for sure, but only one example. As an OEM it excells at process innovation, how to make the production process better and more efficient, however it is not innovative in the sense that it design the chips themselves - that is done by the likes of AMD and NVIDIA and other fabless chip designers. Similarly, foxconn is great in finding ways to make IPhones cheap, but didnt create a new product of its own.
considering Taiwan’s clout on the semiconductor industry, you would expect the TW eco-system to have more chip design houses, but those arent really here.
2 Likes
See (in Chinese) this story about him, started in town of DouLiu
Seems like low key person, not a public person. A family business and other property info.
https://tw.appledaily.com/headline/20210508/FHWNM3ZAMZBKFCP3JNVSQ72VP4/
1 Like
張聰淵事業重心在中國
The article linked above says his main factory is in China.
There are probably 50-100 listed IC design houses. And those are just the listed ones. Many others in gray market.
Mediatek, Realtek, Novatek, SiS, Sunplus, Elan, to name a few off the top of my head.
2 Likes
More and more of these old OEM giants are putting their own products out. In the Bicycle industry for example Taiwan is pretty much on top of the totem pole both in terms of volume and quality.
CNC machines are a similar story as well as companies like Hiwin (linear motion products). Taiwan also is the world leader in plastic optics (with Largan leading the way). Can keep going on for a long time with examples.
For a small island with no natural resources with a population half of Spain it hard to see how things are so bad.
4 Likes
There is no way for some industries needing large factories with many workers to be competitive in Taiwan. To me the companies that go overseas are just trying to stay in business and at least for some companies they still have significant main office in Taiwan.
My old company had factories around the world but could still employ 6000 people in Taiwan. While only 10% of their workforce that is still significant.
3 Likes