Malaysia's No 1 supplier of car electronic and mechatronic parts and accessories has nurtured the right partnerships to take on the Asian market. Multi-Code Electronics Industries (MCE) designs and manufactures car alarms, immobilisers, key sets, a range of functional switches, reverse sensors, power window lifters and automotive lightings for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The home-grown company supplies the likes of Proton, Perodua and Honda in Malaysia. The company is strengthening its foothold in Asia. Tariff barriers on most products across South Asia and East Asia, plus Australia and New Zealand, will be eliminated starting from 2016. "The free trade agreement covers the automotive industry. This is why we have focused on the regional market in the last three years," says group managing director Lim Ming Kee. To set the stage for its regional expansion, MCE has partnered with Hella Australia to produce head and rear combination lamps for the Asia-Pacific region. The automotive lighting manufacturer will provide technical know-how while MCE will handle production and marketing. MCE also started supplying switches to Ford Thailand last year and will offer its products to Indonesian carmakers. For the Indian market, MCE supplies to Hindustan Motors and provides technical support to Mayur Industries. With its initial core products developed in-house, MCE doubled its research and development workforce last year and continues to deliver products that give clients significant cost benefits. One of MCE's innovations is its own version of a passive keyless entry system more competitively priced than European counterparts but with similar high-quality features. Open to ventures outside its core businesses, MCE welcomes collaborations with companies such as international purchasers and OEMs. It is aggressively looking towards the mainland for reliable tier-one suppliers to support its regional expansion. "We aim to build synergistic business partnerships with the mainland for the long term," says group executive director Dr Goh Kar Chun. "Our potential partners must add value to our products and vice versa."
