Taiwanese companies might be wasting their time planning strategies to become internationally recognized brands in the post-manufacturing economy as it often happens by accident, a senior official at the world's No. 1 bicycle brand said yesterday.
"My advice to OEM companies when trying to build their own brand is that it often happens by accident," Bonnie Tu (杜秀珍), executive vice president of Giant Inc (巨大集團), told the Taipei Times yesterday.
"When the chance comes, grab it," she said.
The vast majority of the nation's industrial production is carried out under an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) basis, which means companies here manufacture products to the specifications of overseas brands.
The Giant bicycle brand, the world's largest with an estimated 5 million bikes to be shipped this year, was created in 1981. In 1985, the company's European importer decided to start selling the brand there. After establishing a foothold in Europe, the owner of the import company emigrated, leaving Giant the chance to buy up the company, Tu said yesterday.
Soon after the European acquisition, Giant's largest OEM customer in the US decided to work with a Chinese rival instead, prompting Giant to start selling its own brand there, Tu added.
This year Giant expects to sell NT$18 billion worth of bicycles in 50 countries globally, an increase 7 percent on last year's NT$16.7 billion figure. We are in consumer goods and a brand is very important," Tu said. "It means we can sell at a premium price."
The news may grate on the country's other brands. Acer Inc spent billions of dollars and years in building a brand to little success, Acer Inc president Wang Chen-tang (王振堂) told reporters on Monday.
"Acer's past experience scared everyone off. In the past 10 to 15 years Acer kept losing money, and lost huge amounts in its battle with US brands," Wang said, adding that the company finally turned profitable in May last year.
And Acer spin-off BenQ Corp (明基電通) has plans to be the nation's's answer to Japan's Sony and South Korea's Samsung in the technology market within five years, BenQ president Sheaffer Lee (李錫華) said on Wednesday.
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