Brand value ought to be a com-pany's most important asset in the struggle to survive and grow in a competitive, thin-margin era, especially for those who want to grow internationally, industry representatives said yesterday at a forum in Taipei.
Both Taiwan and South Korea suffered for years from their image as producers of cheap products for foreign companies, Catherine Cole, Samsung Electronics Co's senior brand manager for global marketing operations, said at the International Brand Strategy Forum.
Now, after years of commitment to branding, Samsung has been recognized as a first-tier trademark, Cole said.
"Everything we do is aimed toward making Samsung a premium brand," she said.
Samsung was ranked 25th on this year's list of "Top 100 Global Brands" unveiled by Business Week early last month. It reportedly has US$10.85 billion in brand value this year, a 31 percent growth over last year's US$8.3 billion.
The South Korean consumer electronics and home appliance maker has allocated about US$400 million this year for global marketing, Cole said, a 10 percent year-on-year increase over last year.
Known as a original-equipment manufacturing (OEM) company in the late 1980s, Samsung started to reposition its image in 1993 and in 1998 it established a global marketing operations unit specializing in branding.
Stereotypes about Asia used to be an obstacle for companies who wanted to move West, Cole said, since the image of Asian manufacturers was that of producers of low-end products who flooded the global market with their goods.
Now as several other Asian companies are starting to demonstrate their information-technology (IT) product design capabilities, she said, "We've already been through that most difficult part."
Some companies have been able to generate great ideas to get their names out, she said.
"One year ago I had only a vague idea about BenQ Corp (明基電通) and didn't know what kind of products it was selling, but its advertisements in the print media were very interesting and easily caught my attention," Cole said.
She was not the only one to praise BenQ's marketing efforts yesterday.
The nation's largest mobile-phone maker and a producer of consumer electronics ranked seventh in the list of 2003 Taiwan Top 10 Global Brands, which was announced last night.
The competition was jointly organized by the China External Trade Development Council (CETRA,
CETRA and the magazine -- in collaboration with London-based brand consulting company Interbrand Pte -- conducted a three-month review of companies which generate at least 20 percent of their sales from overseas markets.
Anti-virus software developer Trend Micro Inc (趨勢科技) placed first, with an estimated NT$25.9 billion (US$763 million) brand value.
It was followed by motherboard maker Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), computer maker Acer, instant-noodle maker Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Corp (頂益控股), tire company Chen Shin Rub-ber Industry Co (正新橡膠) and Giant Bicycles (捷安特).
Other winners were computer-networking equipment maker Zyxel Communications Co (合勤), information technology distributor Synnex Technology International Corp (聯強) and chip-set maker VIA Technologies Inc (威盛電子).
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$7.5 billion into its US subsidiary, the Department of Investment Review said in a statement. The department approved TSMC’s application of investing in TSMC Arizona Corp, which is engaged in the manufacturing, sales, testing and design of IC and other semiconductor devices, it said. The latest capital injection follows a US$5 billion investment for TSMC Arizona approved in June. The chipmaker has broken ground on two advanced fabs in Arizona with aggregated investments approved by the department totaling US$24 billion thus far. According to TSMC, the first Arizona
The lethal hack of Hezbollah’s Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices’ path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers might have few assurances about what they are getting. While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that is not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say. The response from the companies at the center of the booby-trapped gadgets that killed 37
FRIENDLY TAKEOVER: While Qualcomm Inc’s proposal to buy some or all of Intel raises the prospect of other competitors, Broadcom Inc is staying on the sidelines Qualcomm Inc has approached Intel Corp to discuss a potential acquisition of the struggling chipmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said, raising the prospect of one of the biggest-ever merger and acquisition deals. California-based Qualcomm proposed a friendly takeover for Intel in recent days, said the sources, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. The proposal is for all of the chipmaker, although Qualcomm has not ruled out buying some parts of Intel and selling off others. It is uncertain whether the initial approach would lead to an agreement and any deal is likely to come under close antitrust scrutiny
SECURITY CONCERNS: The proposed ban on Chinese autonomous vehicle software and hardware would go into effect with the 2027 and 2030 model years respectively The US Department of Commerce today is expected to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on US roads due to national security concerns, two sources said. US President Joe Biden’s administration has raised concerns about the collection of data by Chinese companies on US drivers and infrastructure as well as the potential foreign manipulation of vehicles connected to the Internet and navigation systems. The proposed regulation would ban the import and sale of vehicles from China with key communications or automated driving system software or hardware, said the two sources, who declined to be identified because the