Japan's key automatic teller machine makers said yesterday they are targeting sales in China to meet growing demand there in the run up to the Olympics.
Oki Electric Industry Co Ltd, Hitachi Ltd and Omron Corp. have set their sights on the Chinese market, where the number of ATMs is seen swelling to 150,000 machines by 2008 from 30,000 at present, spokesmen said.
"We are starting to build [and sell] ATM machines in China already," said Oki Electric spokeswoman Akiko Horiguchi.
The firm's wholly owned Chinese unit, Oki Electric Industry (Shenzhen) Co Ltd, aims to build 10,000 machines this year to be sold in China and also Japan.
"We aim mainly to sell them in the key cities such as Beijing and Shanghai where the demand is greatest," she said.
"Oki decided to build a plant in China because it is [more expensive] to operate in Japan. Also we found that it's much better to have operations on the ground there when we plan to target the Chinese market."
Technology giant Hitachi has developed a core component for ATM machines to identify Chinese notes, which it will sell to US and European ATM makers, spokesman Atsushi Kanno said.
The firm also sells its own ATM machines in China.
"The market for banking machines is only just starting and we think it will get much bigger," Kanno said, adding that at the moment all machines are made in Japan and shipped overseas.
Hitachi target global sales of ATM-related products of ?20 billion (US$152 million) in the year to March 2003.
Major ATM maker Omron has a deal to supply US computer giant IBM Corp with China-friendly automatic teller machines. All are made in Japan at the moment, but spokesman Osamu Hanasawa said Omron was looking at ways to produce components overseas such as in the Philippines
"The Asian market for ATMs is in its nascent stages when compared with Europe and Japan," he said, adding Omron expects demand to grow.
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