Sharp Appliances (Thailand) Limited (SATL) will spend 1 billion baht to expand its refrigerator production capacity at two factories in Chachoengsao province over the next five years to respond to projected demand from Asean.
The annual production capacity for Sharp refrigerators will rise to 1.8 million units in 2017, up from 1.5 million units.
Mitsuo Nakashima, deputy group general manager for health and environmental systems at Sharp Corporation in Japan, said 90% of output at the two Chachoengsao plants will be exported, with 70% to Asean and the rest to Oceania and the Middle East.
Sharp has four refrigerator plants worldwide: one each in Japan, China, Indonesia and Thailand.
The Osaka refrigerator plant will serve the Japanese market while Shanghai serves China and Japan.
Sharp will open a refrigerator plant in Jakarta in October this year, with all production serving the Indonesian market.
Takashi Suzuki, the SATL managing director, said the two Thai plants were affected by the minimum wage hike this year, but the company has no plan to move its production base to other countries.
SATL was established in Thailand in 1988, with only 30,000 refrigerators produced in the first year.
"We have expanded our production base gradually since, exporting our refrigerators to over 100 countries," Mr Suzuki said.
The company plans to offset higher operation costs by sourcing some parts from cheaper locations.
It is also buying parts in larger volumes and producing products more efficiently.
SATL expects production to reach 10 million units in Thailand this year.
"We plan to focus on middle-class consumers in the Asean market, which are growing rapidly," said Mr Suzuki.
Total sales of Sharp Appliances (Thailand) hit 22 billion baht in 2012, and are expected to grow by 6% to 23.32 billion baht by the end of this year.