By Anna Gabriela A. Mogato
MULTIFLEX RNC Philippines, Inc. is planning to expand in the Visayas and Mindanao, as the maker of Uratex mattress celebrates it golden anniversary next year.
Multiflex Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Natividad Y. Cheng said the company will open new branches and a factory to meet growing demand for its products.
“We also have General Santos City [which opened in 2012], now we are planning our factory in Tacloban City,” she told BusinessWorld during the 2017 Philippine EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards last Oct. 18 in Makati City.
In a separate phone interview with BusinessWorld, Multiflex Corporate Services Division head Teodulo L. Manlubatan said the company will be opening a store in Butuan City within the next three months.
Aside from Butuan, the company is also planning to open a store in Shaw Boulevard, bringing its total branch network to 22 nationwide.
Mr. Manlubatan said there are also plans to build a foaming factory in Iloilo to reduce logistics costs and to take advantage of the rapid growth in Visayas and Mindanao.
“We set out capacities well ahead of the demand to ensure good customer service levels,” he added.
At present, Uratex has six factories in Plaridel, Bulacan; Alabang; Naga City; Cebu City; Cagayan de Oro City; and Davao City, which Mr. Malubatan said produce an “equivalent of about 1.6 million cubic meters of foam” annually.
“Because the foaming factory has a big capacity [so we don’t have to expand that much]. There’s some hurdles in the capacity to justify to putting out some foaming plants. We’re thinking of putting up a foaming plant in Iloilo. Since it reaches (full) capacity level, we [might] have to put up a plant [sooner or later],” he added.
Mr. Malubatan noted Uratex continues to dominate the Luzon market, but would like to broaden its reach in Visayas and Mindanao,
Multiflex has been expanding since 2014, with capital expenditures pegged at nearly P1 billion.
Ms. Cheng said the company is limiting its expansion to the Philippines only since foam is very bulky.
“Our products are very bulky so we need to keep ourselves in the Philippines first. The Philippines market is still big that we have yet to reach it,” Ms. Cheng said.
“This is also to increase employment since we are local manufacturers, not the importers. The ones who benefits from that are only a few sellers but if it’s locally produced, then we give employment to the Filipinos, right,” she added.
To ensure quality of its products, Ms. Cheng said Uratex use machinery from Germany, Japan and Taiwan.
“We want to have a true Filipino brand that can compete with the imported products. That’s what’s important for us. Let’s save dollars, instead of buying mattresses from abroad, we have the best mattresses in the Philippines. We have the best machineries to produce our products,” Ms. Cheng said.
