(Yicai) Sept. 22 -- Fulai New Material’s shares jumped by their daily trading limit after the Chinese maker of multifunctional coating composite films said it had opened a subsidiary in California to grow its business in the North American market.

Fulai’s shares [SHA: 605488] gained 10 percent to close at CNY40.40 (USD5.68) per share in Shanghai today. The Jiaxing-based company’s stock has skyrocketed by 168 percent since the end of last year.

The new subsidiary, Apex Sensing, was registered in San Francisco yesterday, Fulai announced today, adding that the venture will leverage its parent company’s core technologies in the flexible sensing field.

The aim is to provide local partners with more agile supply chain support and customized solutions for haptic sensing products, Fulai said. The company will work with North American clients to commercialize embodied intelligence technology, it added.

Fulai has extensive technical expertise in flexible sensors, and one of its core products is electronic skin, which features true flexibility and 3D force-sensing capabilities. Its haptic sensors are used in fields such as robotic touch, industrial inspection, healthcare, and new energy batteries.

The company had operating revenue of CNY1.33 billion (USD187.6 million) in the first half of this year, up 15 percent year on year, its earnings report showed last month. But net profit tumbled almost 20 percent to CNY50.93 million (USD7.2 million).

Fulai’s first pilot production line for flexible sensors has been completed and put into operation, and now has the capacity for mass supply, it said. The company previously disclosed that as of February, its flexible sensor project had not yet generated any revenue or profit.

Editor: Tom Litting