SHAGHAI, CHINA - FTLab (www.ftlab.kr)‘s participation in the AEES 2012 in Shanghai, was its fourth. FTLab also took part in C-Touch held in Shenzhen to spur up its overseas marketing campaigns.
FTLab’s first encounter with the AEES dates back four years. At that time, its business was in dire straits: though FTLab enjoyed high brand recognition in the domestic market, it learned raising its sales in the domestic market had its limit. Thus, FTLab started to turn its eye to the overseas market. 90% of its sales come from the Korean market. Jae-jun Ko, CEO of FTLab recalled that FTLab decided to ramp up its marketing activities in the overseas market, albeit under unfavorable circumstances. FTLab’s international trade show debut was made under a government-backed program. FTLab stopped short of striking a great number of deals following the debut. Yet, bearing in mind that continued efforts to expose FTLab’s products to international buyers are vital to FTLab’s overseas market entry, it has continued to showcase the evolution of FTLab via international trade shows so as to win trust from international buyers.
As such, FTLab continuously devoted its energies to oversea marketing for the past four years. At long last, FTLab’s unceasing endeavors bore fruit at the AEES 2011: it inked a contract with DR Electronics in Shenzhen. Besides, DR Electronics threw its weight behind FTLab’s participation in the AEES 2012. Thanks to the assistance from its partner who has a good understanding of FTLab’s products, FTLab started to considerably appeal to the Chinese market. CEO Ko expected FTLab would more than double its sales within three years.
FTLab unveiled a new product at the AEES 2012. It was specifically tailored to the Chinese market. CEO Ko mentioned, “The Chinese market is different from the Korean and US markets. “ In contrast to the Korean and US markets which prefer precise, sustainable automated products owing to high labor costs, price comes before product performance and speed in the Chinese market. Ko thought that the Chinese market sought to create jobs by installing facilities that are manually operated. In this regard, FTLab came out with a product called Capacitive Touch Panel Inspection Module “TM3034.”
“TM3034,” an upgraded version of FTLab’s existing model “TSC1000,” was born out of the idea that modules which are a little slow in production speed but based on precise technologies will appeal to the Chinese market. The plan to develop TM3034, an improvement on TSC1000, was first conceived at the end of 2010 and FTLab successfully developed TM3034 at the beginning of 2012. Then, TM3034 made a debut at the AEES 2012. TM3034 is a manually operated module capable of performing a third of TSC1000’s functions, so Chinese company can take on more workers by purchasing TM3034. The price of this hand-operated machine is also a third of TSC1000. As TM3034 is available at relatively low cost, Chinese companies can keep up with the speed of automated facilities by hiring more workers needed to operate TM3034. Since three TM3034 units are required to carry out what one TSC1000 is capable of doing, three TM3034 units can be installed next to one another - either in series or parallel. When it comes to the sale of TSC1000, FTLab looks to target top-tier, large companies in China.
On the first day of the AEES 2012, FTLab had meetings with four Chinese companies. A Chinese touch panel company based in Shanghai and Suzhou is currently showing a great interest in FTLab. FTLab’s transactions with Chinese sales agencies are likely to begin with the MP-50, a product related to touch panels.
