# Malaysia's Global Manufacturing Champions: Top Glove and Press Metal

> Two Malaysian companies that each lead their industry worldwide: Top Glove, the biggest rubber-glove maker, and Press Metal, Southeast Asia's largest aluminium smelter. This profile covers their scale, exports, and their contrasting labour and ESG scrutiny.

- Category: companies
- Language: en
- Status: published
- Updated: 2026-07-28
- Canonical: https://negaraku.md/en/companies/top-glove-and-press-metal

---

Two Malaysian companies lead their fields globally. One is the world's largest maker of disposable gloves; the other is Southeast Asia's largest primary aluminium smelter. Neither is a household name outside investing circles, yet Top Glove and Press Metal show how a mid-sized economy can produce single-sector global leaders.

## Who are Top Glove and Press Metal?

Top Glove Corporation Bhd was established in 1991 and is headquartered in Malaysia. It began, in its own account, with one factory and one glove production line. Today it calls itself the world's largest manufacturer of gloves, with manufacturing operations in Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam and a presence spanning more than 195 countries. Its Integrated Annual Report 2025 lists 51 factories with manufacturing capabilities of about 95 billion pieces of gloves per annum.

Press Metal Aluminium Holdings Bhd occupies the other end of the industrial spectrum: heavy, capital-intensive metal smelting. Incorporated in 1986 as a privately owned aluminium extrusion company, it is described by RAM Ratings and industry trackers as the largest primary aluminium producer in Southeast Asia, running two smelters in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, at Mukah and Samalaju. Its Mukah smelter began commercial production in 2009 and its Samalaju smelter commenced commercial operations in 2012.

Both companies trade on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia. Top Glove is additionally listed on the Mainboard of the Singapore Exchange.

## How big are they, side by side?

The two businesses are similar in revenue scale but very different in character. The table below draws on each company's most recent reported figures.

| Measure | Top Glove | Press Metal |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Core product | Rubber and nitrile gloves | Primary aluminium and extrusions |
| Established | 1991 | 1986 |
| Main production base | Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam | Mukah and Samalaju, Sarawak |
| Installed capacity | ~95 billion gloves/year (51 factories) | ~1.08 million tonnes/year (Mukah and Samalaju, reached 2021) |
| Latest annual revenue | RM3.49 billion (FY2025) | RM14.91 billion (FY2024) |
| Latest net profit | RM122.8 million (FY2025) | RM1.76 billion (FY2024) |
| Listing | Bursa Malaysia; SGX Mainboard | Bursa Malaysia Main Market |

Note the mismatch: Press Metal earns several times Top Glove's profit on a broadly comparable revenue base. Aluminium is a commodity sold into structurally strong demand; gloves are a high-volume consumable whose economics whipsaw with supply gluts and health scares.

## What did the pandemic do to Top Glove?

Nothing illustrates the volatility of the glove business better than Top Glove's own numbers. When COVID-19 sent global glove demand vertical, the company's revenue reached RM16.36 billion in the financial year ended August 2021, with profit after tax of RM7.82 billion and a market capitalisation of about RM32 billion at year-end (the roughly RM71 billion peak market cap belonged to the prior year, FY2020).

Then came the hangover. As buyers who had stockpiled gloves worked through inventory and new capacity flooded the market, revenue collapsed to RM2.26 billion in FY2023, and the company slipped into losses.

| Financial year (ended August) | Revenue (RM bil) | Profit/(loss) after tax (RM mil) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 2020 | 7.24 | 1,789 |
| 2021 | 16.36 | 7,824 |
| 2022 | 5.57 | 282 |
| 2023 | 2.26 | (886) |
| 2024 | 2.51 | (21) |
| 2025 | 3.49 | 123 |

By FY2025 the recovery was real but modest: revenue of RM3.49 billion, profit after tax of RM122.8 million, and running-capacity utilisation of roughly 75 percent by August 2025. Market capitalisation had fallen to about RM4.69 billion, a fraction of the pandemic-era level. The takeaway for anyone modelling glove makers is that peak-cycle earnings are not a baseline.

## Why is Press Metal's profit so steady by comparison?

Press Metal's edge is cost. In its 2019 rating note, RAM Ratings — which assigned the group an AA3 rating on a proposed Islamic medium-term note programme — said its production costs "sit comfortably in the first quartile of the global primary aluminium cost curve." That structural advantage comes largely from siting the smelters in Sarawak, where abundant hydropower delivers cheap, low-carbon electricity, the single biggest input cost in aluminium smelting. (Because that assessment is several years old, a human editor should confirm it still holds.)

Cheap power plus scale produced record results. For FY2024, Press Metal reported revenue of RM14.91 billion, up about 8 percent year-on-year, and net profit of RM1.76 billion, a 44 percent jump from RM1.22 billion, helped by firm aluminium prices even as alumina costs climbed.

On capacity, Press Metal lifted total primary aluminium smelting capacity to 1.08 million tonnes a year in 2021, when the Phase 3 smelter at Samalaju reached full utilisation and ramp-up; its Integrated Annual Report 2024 restates midstream smelting capacity at 1.08 million tonnes per annum. The hydropower link also feeds a "green aluminium" pitch: metal smelted with renewable energy can command a premium among carmakers and solar manufacturers trying to cut supply-chain emissions.

## How different is their ESG and labour history?

This is where the two companies diverge most sharply.

Top Glove was caught up in the wave of forced-labour scrutiny that hit Malaysia's glove sector. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a Withhold Release Order against the company on 15 July 2020, then escalated it to a formal forced-labour Finding on 29 March 2021, citing indicators such as debt bondage, excessive overtime, and poor living conditions among migrant workers. US imports of its gloves were effectively banned.

The company subsequently undertook remediation, and on 10 September 2021 CBP modified the Finding to allow imports again — reported as the first time in 27 years that a CBP forced-labour Finding had been reversed. According to Impactt, the independent human-rights consultancy Top Glove engaged, the company provided remediation payments of over US$36 million to more than 12,000 current and former migrant workers who had paid recruitment fees, worked to improve worker accommodation, and implemented an independent worker helpline as a grievance mechanism; the US Department of Labor's ILAB has cited the same measures. The episode became a widely cited case study in supply-chain remediation.

Press Metal's ESG spotlight has fallen more on the environmental side. Its low-carbon, hydropower-based smelting is a marketing asset, and Samalaju's clean-energy positioning has been presented as a low-emission industrial zone. Like all large Malaysian manufacturers reliant on migrant labour, it operates in a regulatory environment where labour standards face rising buyer and regulator attention, but it has not faced the kind of US import ban that hit the glove makers.

## What's next

Both companies are betting on the same idea: that being the biggest and lowest-cost in a single global product is a durable moat. For Top Glove, the near-term story is capacity discipline and rebuilding US market share against fast-growing Chinese rivals, after a pandemic cycle that proved how quickly glove economics can turn. For Press Metal, it is sweating its 1.08-million-tonne Samalaju base and monetising "green" aluminium as carmakers and solar firms hunt for low-carbon metal.

For readers tracking Malaysia's export economy, the pair are worth watching as a live test of two theories of manufacturing competitiveness: cheap labour and volume in gloves, cheap clean power and scale in aluminium. Check each company's latest Bursa Malaysia filings for updated capacity, earnings, and sustainability disclosures before relying on any figure here.

## Sources

- Top Glove Corporation Bhd Integrated Annual Report 2025 — https://links.sgx.com/1.0.0/corporate-announcements/27AU0G1YOSMOB7HT/869382_TopGlove_Integrated_Annual_Report_2025_Part_1.pdf (Singapore Exchange (SGX) corporate filings / Top Glove Corporation Bhd)
- CBP Modifies Top Glove Finding: First Finding Modified in 27 Years — https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/09/10/2295249/0/en/CBP-Modifies-Top-Glove-Finding-First-Finding-Modified-in-27-Years.html (GlobeNewswire press release issued by Benjamin L. England & Associates, LLC (Top Glove's US trade counsel) — not a CBP release)
- RAM Ratings assigns AA3 rating to Press Metal's proposed IMTN (press release dated 23 August 2019) — https://www.ram.com.my/pressrelease/?prviewid=5073 (RAM Rating Services Berhad)
- Press Metal posts a 44% hike in full-year net profit supported by strong aluminium prices — https://www.alcircle.com/news/2024-press-metal-posts-a-44-hike-in-full-year-net-profit-supported-by-strong-aluminium-prices-113408 (AlCircle)
- Our Story — Key Milestones (1986 incorporated; 2009 Mukah commercial production; 2012 Samalaju commercial operations; 2021 total smelting capacity to 1.08 million tonnes per annum) — https://www.pressmetal.com/company/our-story (Press Metal Aluminium Holdings Bhd (official corporate site))
- Press Metal Integrated Annual Report 2024 (midstream smelting capacity of 1.08 million MT p.a.) — https://www.insage.com.my/interactiveAR/PMETAL/interactiveAR2024/8/ (Press Metal Aluminium Holdings Bhd (official interactive annual report))
- Determination That Maintenance of Finding of March 29, 2021 (Top Glove) — Federal Register Doc. 2021-19535, published 10 September 2021 — https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2021-19535.pdf (U.S. Customs and Border Protection / Department of Homeland Security (Federal Register))
- CBP Issues Forced Labor Finding on Top Glove Corporation Bhd. (WRO July 2020; Finding March 29, 2021) — https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-issues-forced-labor-finding-top-glove-corporation-bhd (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
- Impactt supports Top Glove with modification of CBP Forced Labour Finding (>US$36m to 12,000+ workers; accommodation upgrades; independent worker helpline) — https://impacttlimited.com/insights/impactt-supports-top-glove/ (Impactt Limited (independent human-rights consultancy engaged by Top Glove))
- Example in Action: Top Glove WRO and Subsequent Modification — https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/sourcingstrong/steps-to-a-social-compliance-system/step-6-remediate-violations/example-in-action-top-glove-wro-and-subsequent-modification (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB))

---
Source of truth: https://github.com/negaraku-md/NegaraKu.md
License: CC BY-SA 4.0