Advantech has acquired a 15 percent stake of Mildex Optical Inc.

Advantech Co (研華) has acquired a 15 percent stake in touchpanel supplier Mildex Optical Inc (熒茂) for NT$200 million (US$6.47 million) to deepen its presence in the Internet of Things (IoT) supply chain.

Advantech said in a statement that it has obtained 15.71 million Mildex Optical shares via its fully owned investment arm.

“Touch panels are a key component for the industrial computer and IoT industries,” Advantech chairman K. C. Liu (劉克振) said in the statement. “Advantech hopes to create a sharing platform for [companies in the] IoT supply chain.”

The collaboration would help boost sales of Mildex’s products worldwide by leveraging Adventech’s global marketing networks. The partnership would also facilitate expansion into the touch display module business.

High-margin industrial IoT devices would be one of its strongest growth drivers this year, as manufacturers in Europe, the US and China are stepping up factory automation efforts.

Last month, IoT business showed the strongest growth momentum, with Europe, Japan and South Korea outperforming other regions.

Advantech acquires Mildex stake will give a great help in the IoT presence.

About Advantech

Founded in 1983, Advantech is a leader in providing trusted innovative embedded and automation products and solutions. Advantech offers comprehensive system integration, hardware, software, customer-centric design services, and global logistics support; Advantech has always been an innovator in the development and manufacture of high-quality, high-performance computing platforms. We cooperate closely with our partners to help provide complete solutions for a wide array of applications across a diverse range of industries. To realize our corporate vision of Enabling an Intelligent Planet, Advantech will continue collaborating and Partnering for Smart city & IoT Solutions.

About Mildex Optical Inc.

Mildex Optical Inc. is a Taiwan-based company principally engaged in the manufacture and distribution of touch panels, mobile device components, polycarbonate (PC) optical lenses and protective glass. The company's mobile device components include mobile phone casings, plastic components, precision molds and others. Its touch panels include resistive touch panels, sunlight readable resistive touch panels, digital touch panels and large size capacitive touch panels. The PC optical lenses include single vision corrective lenses, bifocal corrective lenses, progressive multifocal corrective lenses and plain lenses. The Company distributes its products in domestic market and to overseas markets, including the rest of Asia, the Americas and others.