SEKISUI S-LEC™ develops and sells film for laminated glass used in cars and buildings, and is the leading PVB Film provider in the global market for laminated glass for cars (own estimate for the 2016 financial year*).
In the next few years, global car production is expected to increase by around 2% per year to 105 million by 2021 (compared with 94 million in 2016). Furthermore, the demand for laminated-glass film is expected to grow even faster than the increase in the number of cars manufactured, as the application of the film will be extended to include side windows and sunroofs. This investment will also equip the company to manufacture film for another growing market: windscreens suitable for head-up displays (HUDs). These displays incorporate technology that projects information, such as car speed, onto a transparent surface, such as a windscreen.
The total cost of this capacity expansion will be around 155 million euros. Expansion work in Roermond and Geleen is planned to start in the second half of the 2019 financial year and the first half of the 2020 financial year respectively.
The building activity for expansion has commenced on 3rd April 2018 and is expected to create dozens of jobs in the region of South-East Netherlands.
* The Japanese financial year runs from April to March
