Shanghai - November 11 - Not every company in the Korea Pavilion of the Asia Electronics Expo Shanghai 2009 (AEES 2009) is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, inexperienced and hoping for new opportunities. Some Korean companies are already in the Chinese market but are looking for new niches to grow in. Such is the case for IK Semicon. J.S. Kim, product marketing director for IK Semicon, explained it like this, "We have a distributor in Hong Kong but we're now looking for distributors who can cover the middle and northern areas of China." China is such a big country that there is no distributor which works the whole land.
IK Semicon may not make flashy new technologies, but they build the pieces that make flashy new technologies possible. Specifically, they create LED controller integrated circuits (ICs). These ICs are such common and necessary parts of almost every piece of consumer electronics that they have earned the name commodity ICs. They have applications in practically everything, which is why IK Semicon is so confident about new business opportunities. One of the opportunities they are especially hoping for is a new specialized controller market. "We want to find a new market for specialized controllers," explained Mr. Kim. "There are many IC companies creating low-cost, low-quality ICs, and high-cost, high quality ICs. We want to show the Korean brand as a middle-class brand, not too expensive, and good quality." A specialized market in which IK Semicon could be the exclusive supplier would be best for the growth and survival of the company, he said. A niche like that would be perfect for their needs. The booth did receive a lot of visitors who expressed interest in purchasing some ICs. The company expects to collect all the information they can about interested parties and then contact them again after the show.