Now that Gigabyte is strengthening its focus on consumer-electronics, it wants to offer its users feature-rich products, with the right applications to help its utility. David Chang says that the company is not involved in merely manufacturing products. Instead it is making a point to add more functionality into its products.

What is Gigabyte's focus and how is it doing in the worldwide market?
Gigabyte's main focus is on motherboards, VGA cards, and optical drives. We feel that these are the key hardware components, and our focus on them will be for a long time. We're largely a channels oriented company, with 80% of business coming from there, and 20% from OEMs. As a consumer-oriented company, we feel that it's a very strong market, and would like to focus on consumer electronics-related products, like multimedia PC motherboards.

Why do you want to focus largely on the channel business? Why not the OEM market?
It is easy for Gigabyte to increase its OEM business, but there are several reasons why we prefer to remain focused towards the channel. For one, to get into the OEM business, you must allocate extra resources. OEMs will only come when there's a requirement, which can be quite unpredictable. Moreover, in the OEM business, it's the brands that are well known. For instance, if Gigabyte sells to IBM, then IBM will be better known than Gigabyte.

Also, OEMs don't want extra technology. They only want basic components, because their aim is to drive down the cost of components they buy. In the channel business, we can focus on bringing the best technology to the market with very feature rich products. That's because you have to make technology first, as it's the base. Even Intel asks whether Gigabyte can add value to its products, because we have the technical skills, the engineers to do that.

Gigabyte would like to bring out the best technology to the market, but don't you feel that application is more important?
Yes, I agree that application is more important. There's no point in having technology, if there is no application to drive it. For instance, consider Intel's Centrino technology. While the wireless technology may not be that great, it has a lot of application. Today, you can setup a laptop and PC at home with wireless, and connect them to each other to share files or connect to the Internet, without any cables. You can move them around without any cables to restrict them.

Similarly, Intel also makes suitable graphics for office. But that's not good enough for most young people, who want to play games. We bring better graphics for them so that they can enjoy these games.

But isn't Intel eating into your market share by introducing Centrino?
Not really. We do extra to comply with Intel. We manufacture wireless routers and access points that can be used with Intel Centrino. We also make wireless cards, but the point is that we add more functionality into our products.

How strong is Gigabyte worldwide in motherboards and graphics cards?
We're the number one brand across Japan, Taiwan, Australia, Egypt, and Syria. In Europe, we're number one in the UK and Greece. We're also number one in Russia. In the US and Germany however, we're number three.

Over the recent past, Gigabyte has been trying to get into other markets such as networking and communications, PCs, laptops, and peripherals like mice and keyboards. Won't this dilute your focus?
We never intended to dilute the brand. We're a professional company that has a strong focus on motherboards and graphics cards, just as D-Link for instance has on networking products. Take Quanta for instance. They have good design and manufacturing, but don't have marketing. That's why they're mostly well known in Taiwan.

Gigabyte is a maker and manufacturer of products. Plus, it's a global brand and channels management is very important. Moreover, you have to be innovative and think differently. If you told Italians what to do, they'll never be able to bring you all the fashion they're currently bringing out.

What is Gigabyte doing to keep its channel happy?
First thing is don't make them fight with each other. We know how to give them the right answers. Plus we don't bring out products until we're fully confident. Commercial people are demanding, and will always ask for new things, but you have to know when you're ready, and deliver only then.

ANIL CHOPRA The author was hosted in Taiwan, courtesy Gigabyte

Page(s)   1