Chimei Corporation: Hsu Wen-lung's Acrylic Kingdom and Museum Dream

30-second overview: Chimei Corporation was founded by Hsu Wen-lung in 1960, starting from a small factory in Rende, Tainan, and has grown into one of the world's top five ABS resin suppliers (as of 2024). Its products are widely used in the automotive, electronics, and home appliance industries. Hsu Wen-lung also donated the construction of the Chimei Museum, which opened to the public free of charge in 2015, making it one of the largest privately donated comprehensive museums in Taiwan.

A Chemical Industry Outsider's Dream of Aircraft Glass

In 1960, in Rende, Tainan, Hsu Wen-lung, 34 years old, was originally just a small plastics mold maker, but now he was about to venture into a completely unfamiliar field—acrylic resin manufacturing.

The starting point of this decision was quite accidental. In 1959, Japan's Mitsubishi Chemical came to Taiwan to promote MMA monomer (the raw material for making acrylic), and at the time, no one in Taiwan understood this technology. But Hsu Wen-lung keenly sensed the opportunity: MMA could be used to make aircraft transparent glass panels and various transparent products, with enormous market potential. He proactively went to Japan to learn acrylic resin manufacturing technology, and after returning to Taiwan, he learned while doing it, and actually built the factory.

When Mitsubishi Chemical in Japan received factory photos that Hsu Wen-lung had proactively sent, they were shocked by this Taiwanese man's execution ability and decided to provide technical guidance and supply raw materials. And so, "Chimei Industrial Factory" was born, becoming Taiwan's first polymethyl methacrylate (acrylic) manufacturer. A chemical industry outsider, relying on sharp business instincts and a strong desire to learn, opened a new chapter in Taiwan's polymer materials industry.¹

From Imitation to Innovation: Technological Breakthroughs

From the start of his entrepreneurship, Hsu Wen-lung held the philosophy of "technology as the foundation," insisting on investing in R&D and accumulating independent technological capabilities rather than relying on licensing and external purchases forever. In the early 1960s, Taiwan's chemical technology was almost entirely dependent on imports. He invested substantial resources to build an R&D team, continuously improved production processes, and digested the learned technology into his own core capabilities.

In the 1970s, Chimei entered the ABS resin field. ABS is a high-performance engineering plastic widely used in the automotive, electronics, and home appliance industries. ABS production technology is more complex than acrylic, requiring precise polymerization and modification technologies. The Chimei engineering team spent years of repeated experimentation and finally mastered the key processes. By the 1980s, Chimei's ABS product quality had reached internationally advanced levels.²

After mastering the foundational technology, Chimei began conducting original R&D, developing various special-specification ABS materials to meet customers' differentiated needs. This customization capability built an almost irreplicable technological barrier for Chimei in the fiercely competitive market.

A Materials Empire Among the World's Top Five

After more than 60 years of development, Chimei has become one of Asia's largest ABS resin suppliers, with a global market share of approximately 8-10% (as of the 2020s), ranking among the top five. From the R&D center at its Taiwan headquarters, to production bases on the Chinese mainland, to an overseas factory in Texas, USA, Chimei has established a global manufacturing service network, with an annual production capacity of 1 million metric tons (as of 2024), offering over 2,000 product grades covering a wide range of applications.²

Chimei's products are everywhere. The smartphone case in your hand, the home appliances in your house, the car parts on the road—all may use Chimei's materials. But you can't see or feel them, because Chimei is in the "hidden champion" business—providing high-quality raw materials for other manufacturers, with technical services extending from material design to processing applications, so that customers' purchasing decisions are not just about buying materials, but about buying a complete solution.

Chimei Optoelectronics (CMO) is an important side note to this expansion period. The Chimei Group entered the panel industry in 2002, establishing Chimei Optoelectronics, which once became one of the world's top three TFT-LCD panel manufacturers. In 2010, Chimei Optoelectronics merged with Innolux Corporation, and the merged Innolux became Taiwan's second-largest panel manufacturer, writing a chapter of cross-industry expansion for the Chimei Group's business landscape.³

Hsu Wen-lung's Museum Dream

Hsu Wen-lung's humanistic investment was as concrete and measurable as his commercial achievements: he spent NT$2 billion to build a museum open to the public for free. In 2015, the Chimei Museum officially opened, becoming a new landmark in Tainan. This European classical building houses Hsu Wen-lung's lifetime collection of art treasures: from classical instruments to Western paintings, from animal specimens to weapon collections, making it the largest privately donated comprehensive museum in Taiwan.⁴

Hsu Wen-lung's museum dream stemmed from his life philosophy: "Making money is not the purpose of a business; giving back to society is the meaning." The Chimei Museum is open to the public for free, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, allowing local Tainan residents and out-of-town tourists to access art treasures that originally belonged only to a few collectors, transforming originally private aesthetic assets into public cultural resources.

On February 27, 2023, Hsu Wen-lung passed away at the age of 94, and people from all walks of life in Taiwan deeply mourned him. What he left behind, in addition to a materials empire with an annual production of one million metric tons, is a museum open to the public for free, and the "corporate citizenship" belief he practiced throughout his life.⁵

After Hsu Wen-lung's passing, the actual management of Chimei Corporation has been led by his successor Liao Chin-hsiang (current chairman). Liao Chin-hsiang has long been trained within the Chimei system, is deeply familiar with the materials industry chain, and continues to drive Chimei's R&D layout in high-performance materials and eco-friendly materials. The "happiness" corporate culture established by Hsu Wen-lung and the promise of museum social giving have been continued under the leadership of the new management.

Green Transformation for Sustainable Operations

Facing global environmental trends, Chimei is actively promoting green transformation. Chimei has developed various eco-friendly materials—recyclable plastic materials, bio-based materials, low-carbon-footprint materials—these innovations not only meet environmental requirements but also create additional value for customers in their own carbon audits and supply chain ratings.

In terms of production processes, Chimei continues to invest in environmental equipment, improve energy efficiency, and reduce waste generation. Chimei lists "sustainable development" as a core corporate strategy, proactively internalizing environmental responsibility as part of its business model, and collaborates with upstream and downstream manufacturers to establish a material recycling and reuse system, turning the circular economy from a slogan into verifiable operational indicators. Traditional chemical industry is often seen as a high-risk target in the sustainability wave, and Chimei's transformation attempt provides a local example.

A "Happiness" Corporate Culture

Chimei's corporate culture is deeply influenced by Hsu Wen-lung's life philosophy, with "happiness" at its core. Hsu Wen-lung believed that the purpose of a business is "to make human life better": from material quality, employee treatment to community giving, he incorporated these three dimensions into corporate management evaluation.

This philosophy is most concretely reflected in employee management. Chimei's employee turnover rate is far below the industry average. Many employees have worked at Chimei since they were young, staying for decades. A stable team brings knowledge accumulation and process refinement, forming an organizational advantage that is difficult to replicate through salary competition alone, and is Chimei's internal foundation for maintaining quality consistency in technology-intensive industries.

Coordinates for Taiwan's Chemical Industry

Chimei Corporation's development trajectory leaves several reference coordinates for Taiwan's chemical industry. Technological innovation has been a direction Chimei has adhered to from the very beginning: 3-4% of annual revenue invested in R&D (as of the 2020s), with over 1,500 patents filed (as of 2024), establishing a continuously updated technological advantage in the fiercely competitive chemical industry.²

Customer service is another axis of Chimei. They provide complete technical solutions from material design to processing applications, and the long-term partnerships built with customers have allowed Chimei to maintain relative business stickiness during market cycle fluctuations.

The implementation of social responsibility is the most difficult part for Chimei to be directly replicated. From Hsu Wen-lung's donation of the museum to the company's environmental investments, Chimei's approach is concrete and quantifiable, not staying at the language level of ESG reports. This corporate citizenship spirit is also one of the conditions for Taiwan's chemical industry to enter high-end international supply chains and gain the trust of multinational clients.

Market Dynamics After 2024

ABS overcapacity in China: In the 2020s, China's ABS production capacity expanded massively, with domestic manufacturers seizing the global market at low prices, causing a significant decline in global average ABS prices, compressing the profit margins of Chimei and its peers. This is one of the main external pressures Chimei faces in 2024-2025.¹

Chimei Museum exhibitions: Since its opening in 2015, the Chimei Museum has continued to launch long-term collection exhibitions and special exhibitions, centered on its three major collections of Western art, weapons, and animal specimens, with annual visitor numbers reaching hundreds of thousands during major exhibition periods.⁴

Challenges and Opportunities for the Next 60 Years

Entering the 2020s, Chimei faces new challenges and opportunities. The global chemical industry is undergoing profound changes: raw material cost fluctuations, stricter environmental regulations, and rising trade protectionism are all testing companies' adaptability. The rise of the electric vehicle industry brings new demand for special materials, the popularization of 5G communications creates new markets for high-performance materials, and the trend of sustainable development opens new competitive dimensions for eco-friendly materials.

These three demand curves all point to Chimei's accumulated technological advantages in high-performance and low-carbon materials. Starting from a small factory in Rende, Tainan in 1960, Chimei has walked to this industry crossroads in 64 years. The shape of the next turning point depends on whether Chimei can transform the technological accumulation and cultural heritage established in the Hsu Wen-lung era into entry qualifications for the next generation of materials competition.

References

Further Reading

• Chimei Museum — Donated by Hsu Wen-lung, opened in 2015, free admission, the largest comprehensive museum in Tainan
• Wikipedia: Chimei Corporation — Complete description of business landscape and group structure