Our company's tire cord business extends back more than half a century. The industrial cord business will also soon reach half a century, and the carpet pile yarn business has a history of over 30 years.
During this time there has been a myriad of changes to the business environment in Japan, and we have encountered many challenges.
These include the rapid appreciation of the yen and increased cost for materials and energy, as well as the resulting increase of overseas products in the domestic market. Even in this harsh environment, we've managed to maintain our domestic market share and follow our strong convictions in continually working to overcome these difficulties and fulfill our responsibilities as a manufacturer and supplier.
As concrete strategies, we used imported yarn for its cost competitiveness and quality competitiveness, improved quality and grade to a level that could not be matched by foreign competition, and established our underlying technology.
Regarding use of imported yarn, from 2004 we teamed with an Asian raw yarn manufacturer and began production of polyester tire cords. Our cost reduction paired with self-help efforts based on our proprietary technology combined to allow us to compete on equal footing with foreign products.
Moreover, the single-minded development efforts of young engineers dedicated to achieving competitiveness in quality and grade, have brought us to the top level not only in Japan but in Asia and the ASEAN region.
Currently these strategies have been effective in helping us grow to the No. 1 share of the domestic tire cord market.
Now we are using the proprietary technology, know-how and structure gained through facing this period of trials to proactively enter the market in Asia and the ASEAN region, where automobile production is expected to grow, as well as to promote overseas expansion of our three existing business areas.
By leveraging our strengths as a member of the Toray Group, we established a sales office in Thailand in April 2015. Furthermore, on June 6, 2016 we established a new production and sales company (Toray Hybrid Cord (Thailand) Co., Ltd.) in Thailand (Bangkok), which joined production operations in October 2017. In this way, we are expanding our production bases in Asia, including group overseas process manufacturers. In the future, we intend to nurture strong and determined human resources around the globe while engaging in the expansion of our business.