Industry Focus

In pre-war Hong Kong, major battery factories were Hing Wah (Brand: Five Ram), Kai It (Brand: Bright Night) and Yong Gu (Brand: Flying Elephant). They were operated by families on rented residential units on the ground floor for production. In pre-war Hong Kong, productions were mainly operated manually, and since the end of the World War II, the machines used for military productions in Germany were left idle. A large quantity of these machines were introduced into Hong Kong factories, which had enabled the semi-automation of the production processes, for example, the making of zinc shells and carbon rods by molding machines. Batteries were wrapped with paper tubes in the early years and the packaging itself involved multiple manual procedures. These German machines were initially confidential in Hong Kong and the battery plants were required to spare separate rooms where the machines were installed for production. Only production staff were permitted entry into these rooms. Panansonic in Japan applied full automation in production in an earlier stage and was a pioneer in the industry.
Hing Wah and Kai It continued with production during the war and expanded their businesses. Hing Wah's factory was in Tai Kok Tsui (relocated to To Kwa Wan in 1951) while Kai It's factory was also in To Kwa Wan. Yong Gu used to run a factory in Shanghai before the World War II and moved the factory from Hong Kong to Taiwan after 1949. During the 1960s, someone surnamed Ding set up Colliers Battery Factory in Sam Ka Tsuen and registered the trademark "HW", an initial identical with Hing Wah. Thus, people always thought the "HW" brand was produced by Hing Wah. Large scale manufacturers in the same period included Gold Peak and Golden Power. Gold Peak at first manufactured 9W batteries to be used in lighters in Hong Kong. It had been temporarily relocated to Taiwan and then back to Hong Kong, in Kwai Chung. The factory produced cascaded batteries. The founder of Golden Power, Mr Chan, was a former employee of Gold Peak. He then started up his business at Ting Kok Road, Tai Po, producing cascaded batteries. He switched to doing electronic business afterwards. There were 3 main types of batteries manufactured locally in Hong Kong, 1.5W, 9W and 12W. 1.5W batteries were round shaped zinc carbon batteries numbered 1 to 5 according to size. The 9W and 12W batteries were 6 and 8 layered cascaded batteries respectively, each layer being 1.5W in power. These cascaded batteries were first launched in Germany and were copied by the manufacturers in Hong Kong. Cascaded batteries were available in Hong Kong between 1958 and 1960. They were widely used in electric lighters and transistor radios, as well as toy cars and smoke detectors. Hing Wah and Kai It initially produced cylindrical batteries and had major market shares. Colliers also made cylindrical batteries at first but switched to producing cascaded batteries to avoid competitions with the two battery giants. Gold Peak also made cascaded batteries as their major product. Hing Wah and Kai It joined the production of cascaded batteries as they went popular. Hing Wah had 2 factory plants at To Kwa Wan Road, which were 4 and 6 storey tall respectively. Each level was arranged for specific production process. The productions of cylindrical and cascaded batteries were similar in principle.
Lo Lei Wo was the chief engineer of the Production Department at Hing Wah in the 1960s. He mastered the skills in producing cascaded batteries. Large factories had turned semi-automated since 1958, and cottage factories producing accessories such as metal caps and battery cases were phased out gradually. There were no more cottage factories at around 1965. In the 1960s, electric torches were used widely in rural areas for preventing theft, hunting, harvesting and other purposes. Radios and electrical toys became common among Japan and China in the 1960s, leading to consistently rising demands in batteries. Further, the giant American battery factories such as Eveready and Winchester stopped their productions and switched to importing batteries from Hong Kong by means of OEM. The large demand brought about the golden era of the battery industry in Hong Kong. Batteries became more diversified, and alkaline batteries and lithium batteries were developed afterwards. The battery industry in Hong Kong began to decline in the 1970s. It was due to the large number of cottage plants set up by individuals in mainland China. They purchased battery formulae from large factories and worked on the packaging before exporting the batteries to Hong Kong and South Asia. This created competitions with Hong Kong made batteries. For example, "555" branded batteries produced by a Guangzhou factory were popular in Hong Kong. (However, as there were various quality issues with the mainland brands, some countries rejected these products being imported their markets.) The decline of the industry was also due to rising wages of local workers in Hong Kong. Lo Lei Wo operated National Battery Factory around the mid 1970s. He met with competitions for workers with other industries. The daily salary of women workers had increased from $7.5 to $12.5 in few years. This combined with the falling selling prices of batteries that made the business unprofitable. Hing Wah and Kai It diminished the production scales thereafter.
Further, battery factories were not environmentally friendly. Graphite powder could create serious air pollution and cause pneumoconiosis as well as other occupational diseases. The factories also contained lots of combustible materials such as cardboard and motors. The use of towngas in heating wax could easily lead to fires. Thus, the government tightened the health and fire regulations, which also led to rising running costs. The increasingly unfavorable business environment caused lots of factory owners to sell or rebuild their factories and switch to property business. For example, when Hing Wah Factory was closed down, the factory premises were sold to Sun Hung Kei. Gold Peak also switched to producing higher quality batteries while developing the electronic business at the same time. Golden Power was acquired by Guangzhou Battery Factory, and was kept in Hong Kong to process some parts outsourced from the Guangzhou factory. These products would be labelled as products of Hong Kong so as to enjoy the quotas under the Imperial Preference. Nowadays there were no more large scale battery factories in Hong Kong.