The older of the two frame building factories that Astro Tech operates in Vietnam has been operational for 25 years. The construction plans for a new factory are ready, and now an important milestone has been passed with the ground-breaking ceremony.
To remain competitive, most of Taiwan’s brands and manufacturers moved a large part of their production to the People’s Republic of China around the turn of the century. Samuel Hu opted to go elsewhere, as the founder of Astro Tech bet on the South of Vietnam as the location of his first factory outside of Taiwan. In the meantime, Astro Tech is producing bicycle frames made of aluminum and carbon at two facilities in Binh Duong.
These two factories make up for 90 percent of the company’s frame output, serving some of the best-known bicycle brands sold through IBD channels. But the older of the two factories has been in use for 25 years now, so it should not come as a surprise that the planning for a replacement has been well advanced.
Due to the sharp drop in demand in early 2022 and some minor issues like a planned railroad line that would have run across the planned factory and the plot of land purchased to build it on, the start of the construction had been delayed slightly. But on June 10th, an important milestone was reached with the ceremonial ground breaking. Starting in Q4 of 2026, Astro Tech plans to build aluminum frames for European markets at the new facility located in Phu Chanh. After all, Vietnam and the EU have signed a free trade agreement, further adding to the perks of this Southeast Asian country as a convenient location to produce consumer goods. The new factory will cover a space of 68,000 m2 and have a capacity of up to 800,000 aluminum frames per year. The overall investment accounts for US$ 30 million.
Thanks to the new factory and its advanced automation, Astro Tech expects to shorten lead times, further increase the quality, and offer products that are highly competitive, based on state-of-the-art machinery and end-to-end quality control. Of course, Astro Tech has kept an eye on sustainability throughout the entire planning of the new factory, knowing that European customers put an increasingly high priority on this aspect. For the ground-breaking ceremony, a number of top managers of both Astro Tech and its parent company, Darfon, had made the trip to Vietnam.