[photopress:benq_siemens.jpg,full,alignright]BenQ, which is a Taiwan based company that makes, among many other things, mobile phones will open a new mobile phone manufacturing facility in Shanghai. This will be in Pudong’s Jinqiao Export and Processing Zone and will probably open before the middle of next year. When it is up and running more than 80 percent of BenQ Mobile’s global manufacturing capacity will move to Shanghai.
Danny Yao, general manager of BenQ China’s communications division, said, ‘We have to be closer to clients, and Shanghai brings us a fantastic logistics infrastructure system and favorable tax policies.’
At present, BenQ Mobile’s sales across the Chinese mainland account for 10 percent of the company’s global sales but Danny Yao forecast the figure will go ‘much higher’ in 2007 but what that term meant he did not say.
BenQ next year will launch 15 to 20 new phone models in China. This in comparison to the ten in 2006. At the same time BenQ will expand its distribution channel to 3,000 stores nationwide from the current 1,000 at present.
There are good reasons behind this expansion and optimism. According to the Ministry of Information Industry China’s mobile phone user base has surpassed 430 million, adding about 5 million every month.
Not everything in the garden is roses. China is big and expanding. Germany is a quiet disaster area. BenQ’s unprofitable German mobile-phone unit, acquired from Siemens, filed recently for bankruptcy protection.
Source: Shanghai Daily