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2024 was a busy year for Hansae. In the last 12 months, the South Korea-based original design manufacturer (ODM) has expanded its operations in strategic markets to better serve its customers, including behemoth brands like Gap Inc., Walmart and Target.
Two key pillars of this investment are nearshoring and verticality, as Hansae looks to establish textile mills, garment factories and R&D offices closer to its partner retailers, who themselves are increasingly expanding across the globe. By leveraging a combination of proximity and fabric production capabilities, Hansae creates a stronger collaboration with clients while shortening lead times for more responsive production.
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Kyung Kim, CEO of Hansae Co., Ltd., spoke with Sourcing Journal about some of the company’s 2024 highlights and what is next for its vertical development and nearshoring ventures.
SOURCING JOURNAL: Could you outline Hansae’s global growth and acquisition strategy?
Kyung Kim: Hansae is pursuing a global manufacturing capacity balance of 40-30-30 between Vietnam, Asia and Central America by 2029. To do that, we are concentrating on investment and expansion in the Americas.
Another goal is widening our market penetration by expanding to synthetic products, including swimwear, activewear and intimates. Hansae acquired Los Angeles-based synthetic fabric mill Texollini in September, which will be our core facility to further expand our performance and functional product mix.
Also, we are streamlining production through more verticalization, from raw materials to final garments. The recent opening of our third Color & Touch (C&T) fabric mill in Vietnam will scale our verticalization in Asia. We expanded to a new country of origin, El Salvador, and we hope to begin operation of our all-in-one vertical complex in Guatemala by next year.
Why is activewear such a key focus for Hansae? How are you supporting growth in this category?
K.K.: The activewear and sportswear category showed remarkable acceleration in 2024, surpassing the average growth of the whole fashion market. Interestingly, this expansion is led by new brands, including Hoka, Columbia Sportswear, On, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Vuori, who are splitting the market share of the big four—Nike, Adidas, Under Armour and Puma.
Reacting to this trend, Hansae is engaging new activewear and sportswear clients. Leveraging our experience with Alo Yoga, Athleta and Aritzia, Hansae is adopting a sales task force team model to streamline the initial phase for new brands and offer optimized manufacturing and/or business options. We also share our vast archive and ODM/OEM know-how developed over our more than 40-year history.