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For Round 5 Corporation, the Canadian company that won the Best Asia Pacific Business Award in Toronto last weekend, one of the formulas for success was to set up an office in Hong Kong to look after product development and quality control.
With its popular collectible figurines of athletes involved in the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) fighting competitions manufactured in Mainland China, Round 5's mixed martial arts related products are now available in over 6,000 retail outlets in North American, including Walmart, Toys"R"Us, Target, Kmart, Zellers and Best Buy.
The Best Asia Pacific Business Award, newly introduced by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) in Canada and the Association of Chinese Canadian Entrepreneurs (ACCE) for the 14th Chinese Canadian Entrepreneur Awards, was the highlight of the presentation ceremony held last weekend at the Hilton Suites Hotel in Toronto.
"I welcome Canadian companies to come to Hong Kong, to find out how doing business there is not so hard," said HKETO Director Ms Maureen Siu while presenting the award to Mr Damon Lau, president and co-founder of Round 5. "There are so many success stories about how Canadian businesses use Hong Kong as a platform to expand their operations in Asia."
Mr Royson Ng, President of the ACCE, said, "We introduced the Best Asia Pacific Business Award to showcase success stories of Canadian companies using Hong Kong as the platform for their Asia Pacific expansion."
Mr Ng added that this year, entries came from as far as British Columbia to compete for the eight award categories, including "Entrepreneur of the Year" and "Lifetime Achievement."
Round 5's staple product is a six-inch plastic collectible with a caricature-style design.
"They have really big heads and really big fists, but the faces look very real," Mr Lau said.
The Toronto-based company now sells more than 30 figures, retailing in Canada for C$14.99, and it plans to boost that number to more than 100 before 2012.
Mr Lau said after signing a licensing agreement with the UFC last July, his company's sales skyrocketed 700%. "We then opened a Hong Kong office and are planning to launch six new product lines by 2011.
"Round 5 believes in quality over volume. Fans can expect our products to always get better and the line-ups always stronger," he added. He said he was very involved in the production process. "We have most of the product development done in our Hong Kong Office."
Mr Lau said the United States is Round 5's main market, while Canada accounts for 20% of sales. However, they also want to use Hong Kong as a gateway to expand their market in the Asia Pacific region.
Ends/Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Issued at HKT 15:12
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