Akina Industrial Limited

On carving A-class polyresin gifts

The art of giving has been thriving since human history, and consumers nowadays are placing more-than-ever serious thoughts on choosing the right gifts for their families, lovers and friends. With all sorts of products flooding the shopping shelves, buyers who want better value are finding it no easy task to pick up the perfect choices.

An outstanding supplier churning out top-notch gifts to fascinate the market is Hong Kong-based Akina Industrial Limited. Introducing her company, Akina's Managing Director Miss Esther Fung says, "Although our company started only in 2004, our people are veterans in the industry for over 10 years. We are now a specialist manufacturer of polyresin gifts."

"The name 'Akina' is in Japanese, but we are a 100% Hong Kong company with production facilities in Dongguan of Mainland China. Much like a Japanese firm, we are fully committed to the management style that fosters the never-ending strive for excellence. Also, our name starts with the alphabet 'A', reminding us to always put in an A-class effort."

That commitment has yielded not only a solid reputation for the gifts maker, but also four lines of terrific products, including the gorgeous Spring Dog, the cute Happy Day, the practical Lifestyle and the festive Happy Holiday collections.

Akina is vigorously marketing its Spring Dog collection throughout the 2006 season. "Under this series which features our sweet-looking canine character with a light blue or pink background, we have already released a range of photo frames, photo clips, memo boxes, pencil pots, tape dispensers, water globes, money banks and even cook timers in different sizes. All these have been receiving very good response in the marketplace," Miss Fung introduces.

"For the Happy Day line, which typically features a gorgeous cartoon insect, like ladybug, butterfly or bee, we have some colourful jewellery boxes and pocket mirrors. Santa Claus and snowmen are the stars of our water globes, photo clips and photo frames under the Happy Holiday brand; and the Lifestyle series feature stylish yet practical gadgets for everyday use, including desktop mobile phone holders and small clocks, etc."

Miss Fung told MegAsia that amongst Akina's impressive product catalogue, the most popular items in the market this season are the photo frames, water globes and name card holders.

"We are operating in a very fast moving world where products go out of style very quickly. We see much shorter product life-cycle in today's market. The newest innovations can become clichés in a matter of months, or even only weeks. That is why we have to constantly come up with new designs and new products to uphold our market position," explains Miss Fung.

"This drive for continuous innovation has led us to experiment with new materials to breed the revolutionary range of polyresin gifts that look like glasswares. We are now developing a brand new range of tea light candle holders, ornamental objects and even music boxes, etc. using this cutting-edge creation."

Thriving on new and innovative designs, Akina has five professional designers under Miss Fung's creative direction in its Hong Kong headquarters.

"I get a great deal of inspirations and design ideas from my normal day-to-day activities – just simple things like shopping in the malls or reading through the magazines. I would sometimes wake up in the morning and have all these exciting ideas in my mind. It just comes up naturally!" Miss Fung shares her secret way of product inspiration.

Currently, Akina's design team rolls out about 50 designs each month. According to Miss Fung, the company has now accumulated a total of over 4,000 product designs under its belt!

"We keep on spinning out new product designs to woo the market. Akina is marching on as a vibrant gift idea creator and supplier and we intend to keep it that way," states the determined Miss Fung.

Apart from being strong at generating new product designs, the gifts manufacturer also boasts a number of competitive edges.

"Our biggest winning advantage is our exceptional product quality. All staff at Akina are equally and thoroughly committed to making gifts with outstanding quality. We have stern quality control mechanisms on each step of our production chain to make sure we are carving out the best products," Miss Fung says.

"We also stringently cap the number of times our moulds are used. This is because a mould can only hold its perfect shape to the minute details for a certain number of usages. By limiting a mould's usage, we can guarantee the top quality of our products down to the finest details. Certainly, that means we have to make more moulds, but I insist on that to upkeep the best quality."

"Then, our excellent craftsmanship is widely recognised in the industry. We provide serious on-the-job training for our factory workers to ensure they are delivering the top quality product for our customers. In fact, we just admire many of our marvelous products as works of art!" continues Miss Fung.

Akina also offers a flexible one-stop-shop service when taking on OEM projects. The company sets to go extra miles to cater for the clients' demands as far as it can – even though some of the ideas might be somewhat out of the ordinary. Miss Fung recalled that a client presented her a stuff toy of his company's character and asked Akina to develop a complete line of polyresin products. After lots of creativity effort and hard work, the client was reportedly so pleased with the end result – a complete stunning range of stationery and gifts featuring the signature character.

"We highly welcome OEM projects. With our guaranteed product quality and high flexibility in fulfilling our clients' diverse needs, I am certain that we can build up that long-term loyalty from our business partners," Miss Fung concludes confidently.