Taiwan Wins Record 6 “red dot: best of the best” Honors

Taipei, March 25, 2011 (CENS)--Taiwan won a record 92 prizes, including six "red dot: best of the best" honors, in the globally coveted "red dot award: product design 2011", according to the national Taiwan Design Center (TDC) on the island.

TDC says Taiwan won the most prizes among all nations in Asia in the "red dot award" and the most "best of the best" honors in history.

Will Wu, associated director, Design Integration Division, Creative Design Center of Qisda Corp., says that design ability is now the core competitiveness of made-in-Taiwan technology products. Qisda alone won two of the six "best of the best" honors.

Some 4,433 submissions from 60 nations vied for the prestigious red dot award this year.

The six Taiwanese winner include Qisda (with two winning items, the QPT-231 portable projector and QLD-301 LED floor light), Just Mobile Ltd. (Slide iPad stand), Penpower Technology Ltd. (business card reader), High Tech Computer Corp. (EVO 4G mobile phone), and Metal Industries Research & Development Centre (super-light wrench).

Wu says that amid increasingly-fierce competition in the global EMS (electronics manufacturing services) business, more big customers are eying not low-cost suppliers but highly-innovative partners. Such trend has spawned a new scenario in which the number of talented designers at contractors now often exceed that at brand vendors.

Citing a good example, Wu says there are about one dozen designers at BenQ Corp., a famous computer-peripheral vendor in Taiwan, but over 40 at Qisda, a contract manufacturer; while it is common for the number of designers at major EMS providers, such as Hon Hai Precision Ind. Co. Ltd. (Foxxcon), Quanta Computer Inc., Compal Electronics Inc. etc., to be between 100 and 200.

Industry sources say that a strong design team can raise average profit margin at EMS providers to 6% to 8%, compared to 3% to 4% without.