Hövding enters strategic alliance with Japanese airbag manufacturer Nihon Plast

The Swedish company Hövding, who plans for a listing on Nasdaq First North on June 16, has signed a strategic development and production agreement with the Japanese company Nihon Plast, one of the leading airbag manufacturers globally.

- We are pleased to have Nihon Plast senior leadership visiting Hövding HQ in Malmö to sign this agreement, that gives Hövding access to solid and long experience in the airbag industry,
says Fredrik Carling, CEO of Hövding. Nihon Plast will support our product development while having the production capacity to meet the increasing demand for our product.

The collaboration with Nihon Plast will start immediately and it is Hövding’s ambition that the production can start during spring 2016.

Nihon Plast has during a longer time worked on feasibility studies for the production of Hövding’s products. In parallel, Nihon Plast's design division, in collaboration with Hövding, has started researching supporting concepts for future generations of Hövding’s products.

- There has been great interest from the airbag industry for various collaborations with Hövding, says Fredrik Carling. We have chosen Nihon Plast for the company's experience in the production of airbag products, their product development capacity and for the interest the company has shown in our product and the bicycle market.

- Our entry into the bicycle airbag business not only gives us the chance to take full advantage of our technologies and resources, but also fits perfectly to our management philosophy of contributing to the safety of people, Mr. Wataru Suto, Director and President of Nihon Plast says. Additionally, we are now entering a huge market of bicycle-related business with great expectation of future growth in the globally increasing awareness on environment conservation and health promotion. We believe that this entry will give a foothold to future innovation and application potentiality in the portable and wearable airbags.

The Hövding is an unobtrusive collar that the cyclist wears around his or her neck. The collar contains a folded airbag that only becomes visible when it is involved in an accident. During the past two years Hövding has begun to be launched internationally and is today available in 15 markets in Europe and in Japan. Hövding’s products are sold in over 400 stores and via hovding.com. In Sweden alone, Hövding’s products can be found in more than 70 stores. The company has 20 employees in Malmö. Hövding plans to be listed at Nasdaq First North on June 16th. www.hovding.se

Nihon Plast was founded in 1948 and started production of airbags in 1990. Nihon Plast is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The company has revenues of JPY 123 billion and has approximately 7,500 employees. The company has a global presence with 13 manufacturing facilities and 4 design centers across Japan, China, Indonesia, Thailand, the United States and Mexico.