Changing Roles for Taiwanese Makers
As opposed to EMS providers, Taiwanese makers possess design and low-cost production capabilities. Although the majority cooperates with customers through ODM models, cooperation varies among customers, Taiwanese makers essentially server two types of customers: international vendors and Chinese makers. Both groups outsource design and production to Taiwanese players, while the customer handles sales and service.
Taiwanese makers have cooperate with international mobile phone vendors to establish software and hardware specifications and industrial design of handsets in order to maintain the vendor's unique handset features and product positioning. In contrast, owing to the need of Chinese makers to achieve rapid growth, many handsets shipped from Taiwanese manufacturers are based upon existing models that the Taiwanese partner has already developed. However, Chinese makers are beginning to participate in industrial design in order to avoid price competition in the Chinese market. Taiwanese makers ship full systems to international vendors and primarily knocked-down handsets to Chinese players.
As international vendors establish more production facilities in China and as Chinese makers upgrade their technological capabilities, these customers will be able to handle a larger portion of assembly in China, ultimately impacting the role of Taiwanese makers in the manufacturing value chain. Further lowering component procurement costs and boosting design capability will become yet more crucial for Taiwanese makers. Furthermore, EMS providers' investment in design and attainment of local delivery licenses will have a certain impact on the competitive advantages of Taiwanese players.
Different R&D Approaches in Production Strategy
Unlike IT hardware, there is no standard mobile phone architecture, which has resulted in differences in the amount of design investment and production strategies chosen among Taiwanese makers. Design-oriented players work closely with chipset suppliers and directly use design-in to lower production risk. Manufacturing-oriented players use turnkey solutions which facilitate quicker responses to changes in market demand but reduce leverage in price negotiations with chipset-makers.
Handset development time usually falls between six to twelve months, depending on differences in handset functions and industrial design. However, handset life cycles are usually only six to nine months; Taiwanese makers are hence challenged by product life cycles that are shorter than development time. Manufacturers oriented more toward production can utilize turnkey solutions from suppliers to produce standardized products, further shoring up their advantages in low costs and rapid times to market. Makers that possess strong in-house design capabilities may be more suited for producing a diverse range of products, such as handsets with color displays, digital cameras, MMS, and Java.
Obstacles and Challenges
First Tier Manufacturers
Two issues that first tier Taiwanese manufacturers have to confront include coping with diverse customer portfolios and global logistics. In order to meet the needs of different customers, first tier manufacturers will need to improve R&D capability, expand production capacity, and increase efficient allocation of resources. At the same time, Taiwanese first tier makers must also improve global logistics through offering improved after-sales service and reducing delivery times.
Second Tier Manufacturers
As handsets shift from GSM to GPRS, integrating protocol stack software and handset applications will likely be necessary to shorten the learning curve for new models and to reduce the time required for vendor certification. Any future growth of second tier makers is expected to hinge on successful attainment of these capabilities. In addition, improving quality control and plant management capability will be necessary for second tier makers wishing to increase yield rates. As second tier makers seek to meet customer demand for lower production costs and for components to supply customers' manufacturing plants in China, low procurement costs are expected to become increasingly critical.
New Entrants
Issues concerning new entrants include strengthening of design resources and selection of customers. Wireless communications players have accumulated substantial experience in handling issues arising from analog technology, while enterprises in the IT industry are accustomed to working with digital technology. Consequently, new entrants to handset production from the IT industry need to cultivate design talent and experience in order to handle the analog technology with which they are less familiar. Notebook PCs generally take three months to develop and have a product life cycle of nine to twelve months. Given that handset development time is longer than product life cycle, enterprises entering handset production from the IT industry may need to allocate more than twice the amount of resources on product development as they did in the past.
Samsung and Nokia are the only major international brand vendors that have yet to establish any type of collaborative relationship with Taiwanese handset makers. Consequently, new entrants to handset production are likely to use price as a tool with which to compete against Taiwanese manufacturers that have well-established relationships with major vendors. In China, owing to competition from second tier Korean manufacturers and Chinese makers' improving technical expertise, securing long term partnerships is likely to grow increasingly difficult for new entrants.