AmericanStar’s Vietnam factory targets U.S. for growth
Time：2019-01-23 11:05:46 Share：
The AmericanStar Group has established a mattress supply chain to the U.S. market, one that it will be expanding dramatically this year, company officials say.
The bedding producer, with extensive holdings here, sees major growth potential in the U.S. as mattress retailers and distributors eye alternatives to the Chinese bedding producers who have long dominated the U.S. mattress import scene.
It is backing its aggressive growth plans with one of the world’s largest mattress factories, a complex of buildings that sprawls across 1 million square feet in a gated compound near Ho Chi Minh City.
Furniture Today recently visited that bustling campus to see what is driving rising interest in the U.S. in Vietnamese mattresses.
It found a mattress export powerhouse, one that has been shipping compressed mattresses to the United States since 2003 and is currently being expanded by almost 100,000 square feet, with new foam pouring, spring making and mattress assembly buildings now taking shape.
The expansion will boost the company’s mattress capacity, currently 80 containers per month, to 120 containers a month by this March and to 200 containers a month by the end of this year, officials say.
The AmericanStar Group, whose offices are in Houston, Texas, and is making its first standalone Las Vegas showing later this month, is hosting a steady stream of U.S. mattress retailers and distributors at its Vietnam campus.
There they meet Lee Hinshaw, a U.S. bedding veteran who now lives in Ho Chi Minh City and is AmericanStar’s chief commercial officer and sales director.
“We had specific growth plans in place,” Hinshaw told Furniture Today in an interview at the mattress complex. “The uncertainty with China has expedited our expansion plans. We see the opportunity for significant brand development in various markets, including the United States.”
Chinese mattress producers already face a 10% tariff in the United States, one that could rise to 25% in the next few months. And substantial anti-dumping duties on Chinese-made mattresses are also likely and will further dampen interest in Chinese bedding, observers say.
That has U.S. mattress players looking for alternatives, and Vietnam is one of the first countries that comes up as they seek mattress options for value-priced bedding, observers note.
Hinshaw said AmericanStar is ready to help U.S. retailers and distributors meet their customers’ needs. The company already has distribution centers in Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles and High Point, along with eight U.S. warehouses, and offers a broad line of high-quality innerspring and foam mattresses at attractive prices, he said.
AmericanStar is headed by an international team of bedding veterans that includes Loc Nguyen, CEO, a visionary bedding leader who began exporting compressed innerspring mattresses in 2003, long before that practice became common.
He saw growth in AmericanStar’s future when he located his mattress factory in an industrial zone in Dong Nai province, its current home, in 2006. His vision: To be the leading bedding manufacturer and exporter in Vietnam.
Today the AmericanStar Group operates the largest international bedding factory in the country, one that is 30 miles from one of Vietnam’s two major ports, the Catlai facility in southern Vietnam, Hinshaw said.
About 70% of the factory’s mattress production is shipped overseas, to about two dozen countries.
AmericanStar is focused on helping its customers meet their specific needs, officials said.
“It’s not about what we want to make,” Hinshaw said. “Our team works with our customers to develop the products the end consumers expect.”
The AmericanStar Group has deep insights into the U.S. mattress market through its relationships with a number of U.S. bedding producers, including Therapedic (it is Therapedic’s licensee for Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand), Kluft, Aireloom and Brentwood Home. The company has also partnered with Latexco, which has facilities in the United States.
It carries all of those brands at its luxury mattress store, Luxury Mattress Gallery, in the booming Sala City section in District 2 of Ho Chi Minh City.
AmericanStar (www.americanstarus.com) is, as the name suggests, an American brand. It was established in the United States because the AmericanStar Group long ago saw the potential and importance of the U.S. bedding market, officials said.
AmericanStar also has a “made in the U.S.” line, one that it sells in the U.S. market and that it also ships to Vietnam, where it is carried in the Luxury Mattress Gallery store.
