Taiwan Brands Make Inroads in Global Market

To add value to products has always been the goal of manufacturers, and to build up their own brands has always been their dream. Kenneth Yen, CEO of the Yulon Group, one of Taiwan's leading automobile makers, recently announced that his group is determined to develop own-brand cars for the global market instead of just being an OEM manufacturer of Japan's Nissan automobiles.

Some manufacturers in traditional industries have been working hard to develop their own brands in the international market, and have made substantial progress. Among them are the Pou Chen Corp., Giant Mfg. Co., and Johnson Health Technology Co.

Pou Chen is the world's largest OEM maker of sports shoes for Nike, Adidas, and Puma, but has also developed its own brands. Giant is a bicycle giant that markets its own-brand bicycles around the world. Johnson Health is now the world's fourth largest manufacturer of fitness and gym equipment.

Lo Kuen-chun, chairman of Johnson Health, notes that Taiwan's OEM manufacturers have worked very hard for their foreign clients but have earned only minimal profits. He suggests, therefore, that they upgrade themselves, build up their own brands, and turn out own-brand products that can gain a foothold in the world market.

Brand development requires the devotion of more effort to the cultivation of talent, and to the encouragement of talented personnel to explore their creativity and innovation in the development of unique products. Such efforts are often seen in high-tech industries, and some domestic high-tech firms have been well rewarded for the development of their own brands. Among these success stories are Asus, TrendMicro, D-Link, and BenQ, all of which made the list of Taiwan's top 10 brands in 2007.

A senior official at the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) points out that Taiwan has quite a number of products that are well positioned for the development of their own brands in the international market: various kinds of indigenous fruits, for example, and floral plants (especially orchids), bicycles, and self-developed electronic devices.

In 2006 the Taiwan government launched a seven-year plan to help transform the island's economy from a production-based model to knowledge-based one. As part of this plan, the "Branding Taiwan" program involves the investment of US$50 million in the development of an island-wide awareness and support network to help promising small- and medium-sized enterprises build up their own brands.

TAITRA is vigorously encouraging domestic manufacturers to turn out value-added innovative products under their own brands, believing that branding can create a value chain that reflect the company's core value and addresses the real needs of its customers.

Stan Shih, founder of Acer, Taiwan's foremost computer brand, notes that China is a good market for the promotion of own-brand products by Taiwanese enterprises, because the market there is large enough to support the brands. However, Antony Lo, general manager of Giant, says that Taiwanese manufacturers should not depend too much on China but should also sell their products in other markets. He adds proudly that Giant first built up its image in Europe with its branded "Giant" bicycles about two decades ago, and that the brand has come to be widely recognized all over the world.

Taiwan's Top 10 International Brands in 2007 Unit: US$M
Rank	Brand	Company	Brand sales in 2007	Brand sales in 2006
1	Asus	Asustek Computer Inc.	1,208	1,081
2	TrendMicro	Trend Micro Inc.	1,153	1,127
3	Acer	Acer Group	1,079	870
4	HTC	HTC Group	1,045	--
5	Master Kong	Ting Hsin Int'l Group	732	4112
6	D-Link	D-Link Corp.	350	225
7	ZyXEL	ZyXEL Communications Corp.	324	261
8	MAXXIS	Cheng Shin Rubber Inc.	312	253
9	Johnson	Johnson Health Tech. Co.	305	254
10	BenQ	BenQ Corp.	296	225