Taiwan’s FIC Global targets US$2 billion revenue from Johor operation in 2027

[JOHOR BAHRU] Taiwan-listed FIC Global (FICG) is targeting US$2 billion in revenue from its Johor operation in 2027 as it expands its new US$50 million Senai plant to serve customers diversifying their supply chains beyond China.

The group plans to increase production lines at the plant, operated by subsidiary PRO3C, from eight to 18 next year, while keeping its Chinese factories focused on customers in China.

“Because of the geopolitics, we have to make our Chinese factories focus on Chinese customers,” chairman Leo Chien told reporters on Thursday (Oct 15).

Chien said the group’s China business is still growing fast. Its Johor operation, meanwhile, expects monthly revenue to reach US$100 million before ramping up further towards its 2027 target.

The Senai plant currently has one customer, US-listed optical company Coherent, which PRO3C president Steven Tan said had asked the group to build capacity outside China.

“They want us to help them move outside of China. It’s China plus one, and at the same time it’s FICG plus one,” Tan said.

Other customers would follow, he added. “We have China for China’s needs, and Malaysia for the rest of the world’s needs.”

Taiwan public disclosures show that PRO3C (Malaysia), incorporated in June 2024, is wholly owned by the group’s Guangzhou-based subsidiary.

Expanding in Senai

The 12,607 square metre plant began production at the end of 2025 and entered mass production in the first quarter of 2026. It employs 530 people, about 80 per cent of them in production.

Each of its eight lines has a stated capacity of 120,000 boards a month. These are the central circuit boards used in optical transceiver modules, rather than finished transceivers, Tan said. They carry digital signal processing chips mounted as bare dies, requiring clean rooms and skilled technicians.

Beyond increasing the number of lines to 18 next year, the company plans to quadruple its production space in Senai “very quickly”, Tan said. Details will be announced within two weeks.

Additional plants in Johor will allow it to separate different customers’ work to protect their intellectual property.

Singapore plans take shape

Under FICG’s “Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (JS-SEZ) Twinning Strategy”, Johor will be its manufacturing hub while Singapore will serve as the group’s global supply chain hub, Tan said.

For now, Singapore mainly serves as a shipping route – materials enter through the Republic, are made into boards in Senai and are shipped back through Singapore to customers.

The group intends to establish a research and development and sourcing centre at JTC’s Woodlands industrial park, near the station for the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System Link.

Tan said the company also expects to receive JS-SEZ incentives in future.

Talent over cost

Chien said Johor was not the cheapest option, and that Penang’s electronics supply chain is “much, much stronger”. His biggest concern is recruiting workers.

“My business model is not to find lower costs,” he said. “I want to go where the talent goes.” He argued that being close to Singapore draws international engineers and their families. A factory built on a technology lead rather than cheap labour, he added, could later be repeated in the US or Europe.

Tan said the company also wants to attract Malaysians working in Singapore back to Malaysia.

A Singaporean who spent 20 years setting up factories in China, he now commutes daily from Singapore to Johor. “I used to move Singapore to China,” he said. “Now it’s moving China back to South-east Asia.”

From China plus one to China plus N

The investment reflects a broader shift in how companies manage supply-chain risks, said Jimmy Koh, managing director and head of network partnerships and strategic marketing at UOB’s group foreign direct investment advisory unit.

Supply-chain diversification was “no longer a business strategy” but a matter of corporate governance, he said.

You cannot go to your board and shareholders and say, ‘I don’t have a plan B’,” he said. The shift, in his view, has moved from “China plus one” to “China plus N”, with economic corridors such as Johor competing for investment.

Koh estimated that UOB’s foreign direct investment advisory unit had facilitated at least 50 projects since 2024, involving slightly less than RM20 billion (US$4.9 billion) in foreign direct investment flows. Many landed in Singapore first before expanding into Johor, he said.

The bank works with the Invest Malaysia Facilitation Centre Johor on a fast lane for its clients. In one case, he said, a client’s manufacturing licence came through within two weeks after the Malaysian Investment Development Authority helped to fix documents that were submitted wrongly.

Chien said FIC Global had chosen Johor before meeting UOB. The bank subsequently introduced the group to state officials and InvestJohor’s chief executive, Koh said.

Johor state executive councillor Lee Ting Han said the state had more than 1 gigawatt (GW) of operational data-centre capacity in the first half of this year, with a further 3 to 5 GW under construction or planned.

“We want Johor to host digital infrastructure and help manufacture the technology that powers it,” he said.

Given current global tensions, Lee said, Johor was creating “essentially a safe haven” for customers and investors.

Tan sees the plant as part of a new wave for Senai, which made printers 30 years ago and vacuum cleaners a decade ago. “Today, I guess the next wave is... AI-related,” he said.