ELTRON TO DO BUSINESS IN CHINA; MAKERS OF BAR CODE PRINTERS WILL OPEN OFFICES IN FIVE CITIES.

Byline: Gloria Gonzales Daily News Staff Writer

Eltron Inc., the Simi Valley-based manufacturer of bar-code printers and ``smart-card'' machines, announced plans today for an aggressive expansion into China.

Eltron Inc., which opened its first Asian office in Singapore in 1996, has signed an agreement with Beijing-based Chinetek Group to form a joint venture to aid the expansion plans.

The newly formed subsidiary, called Eltron-Chinetek Co. Ltd., will open five offices in the major Chinese industrial centers of Beijing, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Hong Kong over the coming year.

A 10-year-old company that started with five employees in a 3,000-square-foot Chatsworth office, Eltron Inc. has grown to 500 employees and a campus-like corporate headquarters and manufacturing plant that cover about one square block in Simi Valley.

The company manufactures high-quality, affordable bar-code machines often used by small businesses to mark and track merchandise. Eltron Inc. also is developing smart-card technologies, including credit cards with security features like thumbprints. The company expects most of its early sales in China to be bar-code printer sales.

``Eltron printers suit the market in China because they offer low prices and are so reliable and easy to use,'' said Lawrence Ma, the joint venture's general manager. ``The Asian market has been Eltron's fastest-growing segment this year . . . and we believe this (joint venture) is the ideal vehicle to take advantage of China's rapidly growing economy.''

In 1996 the company sold a record 160,783 printers, which range in price from $300 to $10,000. Total revenues for 1996 reached $88.5 million, and 1997 first-quarter sales increased 22 percent to $23.2 million, up from $19 million for the first quarter last year.

The company, whose international sales topped $25 million in 1996, always has kept its eye on the global marketplace, said Donald Skinner, Eltron's chief executive officer and one of the company's founders.

``We've been a global company from Day One,'' Skinner said. ``We had early financing out of Taiwan, and the first two years 77 percent of our revenues came out of Europe. We knew from the beginning that we had to look in the global direction to be successful.''

The company does not expect to immediately add employees at its Simi Valley site, though sales growth encourages employment growth, said company spokeswoman Linda Broderick. Broderick added that the company would first add Chinese sales staff in its five new offices.

Eltron Inc. trades on the Nasdaq exchange under the stock symbol ELTN.