by Anna Filatova
08/20/2002 | 12:12 AM
It is no news that nowadays more and more computer-component makers try to transfer their manufacturing facilities to China so to cut down their expenses and improve gross-margins. We are not sure that the quality will remain on the same level as today, but cutting-down the outlays is the only way of surviving in current market conditions.
A lot of companies decided to give up manufacturing and outsource this to the bigger makers. For example, AOpen recently determined to outsource some of their devices to Wistron and also built its own plant in Guangdong Province, China. ABIT wants Elitegroup Computer to make the whole range of their mainboards as it was really hard for them to push expensive retail mobos on the market after several failures.<%BANNER[article]%>
As I have discovered at DigiTimes, Albatron Technology followed the others to find an outsourcing partner in China. The company states that the labour and overhead involved in manufacturing a board in Taiwan exceeds $7, while in China the production fee is around $3-4 per unit. Presently, Albatron only has back-end testing and packing lines in its Taoyuan factory in China. The front-end SMT and DIP processing for motherboards and graphics cards are handled by its contract manufacturer in Taiwan. The company plans to start transferring its orders sometimes in October starting from graphics cards.
Keeping in mind that Albatron only entered the computer-component market this spring and taking into account present market state, we can consider this company to enter the family of high achievers as they continue to grow. Currently they sell about 20 thousands of motherboards and about 70 thousands of graphics cards per month. In July Albatron`s revenue reached $6.75 million, 132.7% more than in June. The company expects their August results to stay on the level of July and hopes that in September they will manage to raise it even more due to higher seasonal demand.
The final decision on the actual contract-manufacturer for Albatron Technology has not yet been made.