SCHOTT completes optical-components facility in Kulim

New optical-components capacity in Kedah

SCHOTT Glass Malaysia Sdn Bhd has completed its new production facility in Kulim, Kedah. The site expands the company's capacity to supply optical components for international high-tech industries, including augmented reality. Approximately 400 skilled engineering and production jobs are expected at the facility.

The expansion complements SCHOTT's established manufacturing operation in Penang. Registered in 1974 as the company's first Asian production site, Penang employs more than 1,300 skilled engineers and production workers. Its optical components and specialty materials serve a range of high-tech applications.

Building on the Malaysian manufacturing base

SCHOTT board member Dr Andrea Frenzel welcomed the continuation of the company's Malaysian expansion. Malaysian Investment Development Authority chief executive Datuk Sikh Shamsul Ibrahim Sikh Abdul Majid linked the investment to the country's New Industrial Master Plan 2030 and its ambitions for innovation, technology and entrepreneurship.

SCHOTT completed the Kulim facility in less than twelve months. Dr Andrea Frenzel and Marcus Knöbel, who had recently joined the management board as chief financial officer after leading Advanced Optics, inaugurated the site. More than 300 SCHOTT Glass Malaysia employees attended the ceremony on 26 September 2024.

Advanced optics and specialty materials

The Advanced Optics business connects Malaysia with manufacturing centres in Germany, North America, Switzerland and China. Its Malaysian activities combine product development with mass production. Penang's semiconductor-related products include glass wafers and packaging for micro-electromechanical systems.

Founded in 1884 and headquartered in Mainz, Germany, SCHOTT produces components and materials including:

specialty glass;
glass-ceramics;
polymers.

SCHOTT logo.

Applications range from flexible glass for foldable smartphones to glass-ceramic mirror substrates for large telescopes and laser glass for nuclear fusion. SCHOTT generated €2.9 billion in sales in fiscal 2023. The company belongs to the Carl Zeiss Foundation, which uses dividends to support science.