With the slogan “Little parts, big difference”, YKK’s two core businesses are zippers, buttons and curtains, door panels.
YKK – A Japanese company famous worldwide for its high-quality zippers, this 90-year-old enterprise has been a leader in the global zipper industry for decades. YKK zippers are everywhere in the world’s fashion industry from jeans, to jackets, handbags, wallets and were even used in the suits of the first astronauts to set foot on the moon more than half a century ago.
Sharing with VITAS during a visit to the YKK factory in Ha Nam, Mr. Yuji Furukawa, General Director of YKK Vietnam, said that YKK has been present in Vietnam since 1998. A year later, the company built its first factory in Amata Industrial Park (Dong Nai). In 2006, Vietnam joined the WTO, a push that attracted many global fashion companies to invest in production and expand their business, turning Vietnam into a fashion product processing center. After the first factory, in 2018, YKK started construction of a second factory in Ha Nam to increase its ability to serve fashion industry partners. After 25 years of presence, YKK Vietnam increased its zipper production output 100 times, and the number of employees increased seven times, to 2,800 people.
Today, YKK’s three factories can weave yarn into fabric strips, punch metal zipper teeth, or produce their own zipper heads. Today, most of YKK Vietnam’s production processes, including dyeing, are automated. YKK Vietnam’s zippers come in 30,000 colors, can be pulled up and down at least 1,000 times depending on the product type, and take 5–10 days to deliver after order confirmation depending on how complex or simple the item is, and how large or small the quantity is.
Mr. Yuji Furukawa added that in the past, YKK Vietnam had to import some zipper products from foreign YKK companies to supply to domestic customers, but now the factory in Vietnam produces most of YKK’s products. In addition to “on-site export”, products are exported to countries such as Cambodia and Myanmar. Vietnam is currently an important link in the global supply chain of fashion brands such as Nike, Adidas, Decathlon, and YKK Vietnam directly supplies products to factories that produce and process for these brands.
In 2023, for the first time in history, YKK will move its global sales division to a country outside of Japan, and Vietnam is the chosen name. YKK’s vision for this shift is clear: Vietnam is not only home to Vietnamese companies but also to multinational manufacturers. Locating the global sales division headquarters in Vietnam can see the whole world. With textile and garment export turnover reaching 44 billion USD in 2022, Vietnam is currently the third largest textile and garment exporting country in the world. This has a positive impact on companies in the supply chain like YKK, which is why YKK moved the headquarters of its global sales division from Japan to Vietnam.
