Posts in ‘Uncategorized’

Avoid Gadget Scratches with Wrapsol

Nov 23

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Quanta and ACER get behind WiMAX

Aug 16

Recently Digitimes noted the formation of a WiMAX consortium here in Taiwan. According to Digitimes:

Four Taiwan WiMAX licensed operators – Global Mobile, Vastar Cable TV System, Tatung Telecom and First International Telecom (Fitel) – on April 15 formed the Consortium of Mobile Broadband (CMB) with an aim to facilitate the development of the WiMAX industry in Taiwan.

China Economic News (CENS) reported shortly thereafter that Taiwanese PC manufacturers are supporting the WiMAX standard. CENS reported:

Taiwan’s top two PC makers-Acer and Quanta Computer-recently joined the island`s telecom providers to form an alliance christened “Consortium of Mobile Broadband (CMB)” to promote WiMAX technology.

The article continues:

Industry watchers on the island said the allying suggests that makers of network-communications equipment PC makers have emerged as another major force pushing the formation of the next-generation mobile industry in Taiwan.

Intel has is also getting behind the development of WiMAX in Taiwan. Reuters reports:

Intel Corp said on Monday it will invest $500 million in Taiwan over the next five years, with a large amount of the investment targeted at the island’s WiMAX sector.

As I also noted last week, at the top of NEC’s procurement list were WiMAX components. WiMAX is growing in Taiwan.

Article 1: Taiwan licensed WiMAX operators form consortium
Article 2: Taiwanese PC Makers Join WiMAX Camp
Article 3: Intel to Invest $500M in Taiwan to Boost WiMAX
Previous: NEC to Purchase Components Worth Three Billion USD
About WiMAX: WiMAX Forum, Wikipedia

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Branding Taiwan

Aug 16

I just saw an article on China Economic News (CENS) on how Taiwan companies are trying to develop their own international brands. Many/most successful companies in Taiwan are successful OEM/ODM/EMS/Contract manufacturers (take your pick). Two outstanding examples are Hon-Hai and Quanta. However, there are also some very successful and increasingly ubiquitous brands including ACER, ASUS, TrendMicro and Giant.

Apparently some manufacturers are now looking to develop their own brands. As one of my MBA professors said to me a few years ago, there is very little money on the manufacturing side of the value chain. Many companies in Taiwan have developed strong foreign customers who have their own brands and make enormous profits through their own brand equity. The Taiwanese manufacturers on the other hand only reap small profits. They are now looking to redress this imbalance.

However, CENS observes:

Brand development requires the devotion of more effort to the cultivation of talent, and to the encouragement of talented personnel to explore their creativity and innovation in the development of unique products. Such efforts are often seen in high-tech industries, and some domestic high-tech firms have been well rewarded for the development of their own brands. Among these success stories are Asus, TrendMicro, D-Link, and BenQ, all of which made the list of Taiwan`s top 10 brands in 2007.

And here is the problem! Many Taiwan companies are run, in a fellow writer’s words “like giant Mom ‘n Pop stores.” Very little attention is given to external communications. Websites are usually an absolute mess with very little consistency in terminology and very little thought as to what the value-proposition of the company and the product is.

Many companies also resort to phrases like the one above, “Brand development requires the devotion of more effort to the cultivation of talent, and to the encouragement of talented personnel…,” which actually says very little about what actually needs to be done. Company CEOs are also very strong minded about how they perceive the marketing material should be and even if the company slogan is grammatically incorrect in English, they will not change it because they like it.

Many Taiwanese companies think the product is good enough to establish the brand of the company. I beg to differ! I would even argue they should know better. Most companies have grown up through manufacturing and should surely realize by now how easy it is to make stuff.

Communications is the key! Yet they place so little emphasis on communicating what their company is about and, when they do communicate, many of the press releases are a grammatical mess which are really difficult to read. This is true even for some companies on Interbrand’s Top Taiwan Brand list.

If Taiwanese companies are truly interested in developing strong brands, they really need to pay attention to their communications at all levels. Productivity is good and innovation critical but communicating clearly and concisely (although this post is certainly not concise) is also important.

(Article: Taiwan Brands Make Inroads in Global Market)

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Forbes’ Inaugural Taiwan’s Top 40 Richest List

Jun 02

I stumbled on this yesterday, slightly outside the purview of a tech blog, but still relates to Taiwan and Taiwan business. The net worth of the Top 40 is impressive. According to Forbes.

For decades after the end of World War II, Taiwan’s relationship with China was strained because of politics. Today, changes on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are leading to hopes for better relations between the two, a trend that is already boosting wealth in Taiwan.

That is the main theme from our inaugural list of Taiwan’s 40 richest. Taiwan’s main stock index and property prices have gained this year on hopes that the island, under newly elected President Ma Ying-jeou, will seek closer ties with the mainland. To that end, Taiwan is prepared to open itself to goods and money from the mainland in ways that it hasn’t in more than a half a century.

“There is a lot of room to increase business between both sides,” says Stephen Liao, vice president and head of research at Grand Securities. Among the industries that would particularly benefit from closer ties are retail, tourism and property, he says.

The combined net worth of the island’s 40 richest is $77 billion, more than their counterparts in South Korea or any Southeast Asian nation. They lag Hong Kong’s top 40 by $102 billion and China’s by $43 billion, but considering Taiwan’s political isolation and relative size, the group holds its own.

Yeah, maybe these guys can get richer when more money flows into Taiwan from the Mainland but at what cost? According to the article property prices are already on the rise. Average property prices around my neighborhood start at around USD500,000 and I have seen two apartments recently for more than USD1,000,000. We even saw one for USD3,000,000. Average Taiwanese people earn a little over USD1,000 per month. They cannot afford these apartments and that is why the companies can remain competitive. A very cheap highly-educated work force. (Most of the people in my company have Master’s degrees from overseas).

While I have a lot of respect for Taiwan’s entrepreneurship (hence a blog focusing on Taiwan’s businesses), I don’t think opening more links with China will improve the lives and wealth of the average Taiwanese person, and their relative financial position may even deteriorate. I will give credit to Ma though, I saw an article (cannot find the link) where he said he wanted to increase the average Taiwanese salary to NTD900,000 (USD30,000) per year. Even so, they will still not be able to afford apartments and houses in Taipei. Its just too expensive.

Anyway, for what its worth, Taiwan’s richest list is below with links to their short Forbe’s biographies:

  1. Tsai Hong-tu & family
  2. Y.C. Wang
  3. Terry Gou
  4. Tsai Wan-tsai
  5. Cher Wang & Wen Chi Chen
  6. Jeffrey Koo Sr.
  7. Lin Rong San
  8. Wei Ing-Chou & family
  9. Tsai Eng Meng
  10. Lin Yu-Lin
  11. Eugene Wu & family
  12. Barry Lam
  13. Chao Teng-Hsiung
  14. Douglas Hsu
  15. Shi Wen Long
  16. Luo Jye & family
  17. Chang Yung-fa
  18. Tsai Ming-Kai
  19. Leslie Koo
  20. Jason Chang
  21. Lin Ming-cheng
  22. Tsai Chi Jui & family
  23. Long-Shing Liao
  24. Suhon Lin
  25. Tseng Shin-yi
  26. Rudy Ma & family
  27. Kenneth Yen & family
  28. Paul Liao & family
  29. Chen Ching-Chih & family
  30. Samuel Yin
  31. Wu Chung-Yi
  32. Lin Yu-chia & family
  33. Hou Bo-ming & family
  34. Chen Yung-tai
  35. Show Chung Ho
  36. Wu Ping-Chih & family
  37. Allen Horng & family
  38. Bruce Cheng
  39. Steven Pan & family
  40. Ting Piao Chiao & family

(Forbes’ Article: Taiwan’s 40 Richest)

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Taiwanese Firms Moving to Vietnam

May 04

China Economic News (CENS) continues to update on Taiwanese firms moving to Northern Vietnam. (See Vietnam the new Promised Land) In an article posted Friday (April 18) CENS says:

To ease the impact of skyrocketed production costs in mainland China, Taiwanese firms operating there, including those form the electronics and conventional industries, are rushing to move operations to northern Vietnam.

The relocation move such leading electronics as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. and Compal Electronics Corp. is expected to encourage more Taiwanese firms to do so in the second half of this year. Taiwan`s top-five electronics firms have all set up production facilities in the northern part of Vietnam.

However, all this movement is pushing up property price in Vietnam, especially in Hanoi. The article says:

…the average land price for some industrial zones in northern Vietnam is set at 200,000 renminbi per acre, quite the same as those located in eastern and southern parts of mainland China.

I am sure we will hear more about this as time goes by. However, one should imagine that rising costs in Vietname will eventually force many companies to return to Taiwan or to expand elsewhere. I personally believe this is good for Vietnam. Much of the success of Guangdong Province in South China can be attributed to the massive investment from Taiwanese firms there. Perhaps Vietnam can reap the same benefits and their people can have an improved quality of life.

Article: Taiwanese Firms Switch Operations to Northern Vietnam From Mainland China
Previous Coverage: Vietnam the new Promised Land

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