[Special Stock] Taeseong to Begin Full-Scale Sales of Secondary Battery Copper Foil Equipment Next Year... Domestic Production Strength Leads to Customer Requests First

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] Taeseong, a company specializing in printed circuit board (PCB) automation equipment, is showing strong performance. News of its entry into the secondary battery market based on its technological competitiveness appears to be influencing its stock price.

As of 10:46 AM on the 9th, Taeseong is trading at 1,765 KRW, up 7.29% from the previous day.

Taeseong is a specialized company in PCB automation equipment. A PCB is a base board with printed electrical signal circuits that connect various components such as semiconductor chips through the circuits. It is used in electronic components including semiconductors, mobile devices, automotive electronics, and displays. Products made using Taeseong’s PCB equipment are supplied to over 50 major domestic and international big makers such as Foxconn subsidiary Fengding, Fastprint, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, and LG Innotek. The company entered the KOSDAQ market last June through a merger with Shin Young SPAC No. 5.

Taeseong has localized 18 types of equipment used in PCB processes, including front-end, surface treatment, etching equipment, and non-contact vertical equipment. By improving precision compared to imported products and applying automation, its technology has been recognized to the extent that it is re-exported to countries like Japan and Germany.

As Taeseong’s technological capabilities became known, it received requests to develop copper plating process equipment used in manufacturing copper foil for secondary batteries. The company expects to supply new equipment next year. Sales of related equipment have also increased due to growing demand for premium components such as fine metal masks (FMM) used in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel materials, rigid-flexible printed circuit boards (RF PCB) used in foldable phones, and flip-chip ball grid array (FC-BGA) used in high-performance semiconductor substrate packaging.

Taeseong is expanding its production facilities. It is expanding its domestic Ansan factory to increase current production capacity (CAPA) by about 40%. Consolidated sales for the first half of this year reached 35.753 billion KRW, a 93.6% increase compared to the previous year. Operating profit was 1.159 billion KRW, up 80.5% from last year. It is known that equipment contracts scheduled for delivery by April next year are already in place.

CEO Kim Jonghak said in an interview with the media, "We have received a request from a major secondary battery company to manufacture copper plating line equipment and are currently developing it," adding, "We have signed a business agreement and expect full-scale delivery to begin next year." He also added, "Our goal is to stably generate sales exceeding 150 billion KRW within three years."