TIPPERARY CRYSTAL is to expand into China in a joint venture with Neoglory, the largest crystal jewellery company in the world, which has nearly a thousand stores across China.
Following a series of meetings in China between Neoglory founder Zhou Xiaoguang and Tipperary crystal managing director Declan Fearon, the new venture called Project Jewel will see Tipperary open its first standalone shop in six weeks time in Hangzhou, a city in eastern China with a population of more than eight million people.
"This will be the first dedicated crystal store in China," Mr Fearon told The Irish Times.
Specially-made crystal giftware pieces from Tipperary, but also Waterford and Jerpoint Glass have been shipped to China for the opening. There is currently very little crystal on offer in the country, Mr Fearon says, and a handful of brands have only limited presence; crystal for Neoglory’s jewellery is imported from Swarovski in Austria and the Czech Republic.
With independent studies predicting China’s upper middle class will include 76 million urban households by 2015, market prospects are promising.
Linda Zhou is one of the richest women in China, a self-made businesswoman who rose from being a penniless teenager selling jewellery to command a world accessories empire that employs more than 6,000 people. Neoglory, which has annual turnover of $100 million, launches 100 products a day and owns five million square metres of commercial property in Yiwu, the biggest market city in the world.
“We had lunch with her the other day in her kitchen with all 28 family members who live over the factory and work in the business,” says Mr Fearon. “She’s low key and she lives to work.”
If crystal sales take off at the pace expected within the next 12 months, Mr Fearon says, Madam Zhou wants to build the biggest crystal factory in the world in China with Irish expertise and the brand will be Tipperary Crystal.
“It has taken us 15 months to develop a relationship with China,” said Mr Fearon. “Linda loves Louise Kennedy crystal and she has just bought the second largest furniture company in China a few weeks ago and wants to showcase the crystal with the furniture at a furniture fair next Tuesday.
“And she can make these things happen because she is a deputy in the Chinese government [the National Peoples Congress]. It’s like a fairy story,” he says.
Tipperary’s strategic overhaul of its business, relocating to China, has seen it award a licence to trade as Tipperary Crystal, (in Ireland and England exclusively) to a Dublin company. This allows Tipperary Crystal to become a mobile branded company enabling it to develop the business in Asia, South Korea and the United States.
Coinciding with the Chinese expansion is another ambitious project by Mr Fearon for CHQ in Dublin’s docklands.
The concept is to convert the building into the largest culture centre in Ireland.
The mix of attractions being proposed include a Riverdance “experience” , a Tipperary Crystal manufacturing facility and a genealogy centre. The plan will also include a visitor centre, shop, restaurant, an Irish design centre and a crystal manufacturing school.
