ISTOBAL opens a subsidiary in China with a production plant
Located 80 km from Shanghai and with 10,000 m2 for the final assembly of car and commercial vehicle wash equipment, it will supply the entire Chinese market.
Spanish provider of vehicle wash and care solutions ISTOBAL is driving its international expansion plan and opening a subsidiary in China in Jiashan County (Zhejiang Province), with a production facility for final assembly of wash equipment in the “China Guigu Science Park”. The subsidiary will also have sales offices in Shanghai (Hongqiao).
With this operation, the ISTOBAL Group now has ten subsidiaries worldwide, located in Spain, Portugal, Italy, the UK, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, USA, Brazil and China. In addition to its main manufacturing plant in Spain and the two assembly and final assembly plants in the USA and Brazil, the new 10,000 m2 plant in China will allow for further expansion.
ISTOBAL enters the Chinese market a year after starting its exports to this country. China is a growing market for technological car wash equipment for the automotive sector and is key to the strategic growth plan of the Spanish group. The company plans to increase its turnover in China by 50% this year compared to the previous year.
“China now has 1.4 billion inhabitants, 270 million cars and the car wash sector is relatively new. Demand has started to grow in the past 3 -5 years,” said Rafael Tomas, CEO of ISTOBAL.
"This market is already demanding equipment with more technology and reliability. ISTOBAL is therefore established as a provider of innovative 360° solutions for the car wash and car care sector in China,” added Tomas.
Key wash solutions for the Chinese market include automatic rollovers, automatic wash tunnels and commercial vehicle wash equipment.
ISTOBAL collaborates with Sinopec, one of the country's leading oil companies, which already has 60 ISTOBAL machines at its service stations. Collaboration will be extended during 2021 with the plan to install more than 30 more automatic car wash rollovers and tunnels.
