New presence

The major European electronics and semiconductor manufacturer, ST Microelectronics, has set up a representative office in Bangkok to provide electronic solutions to its international customers and to help develop local businesses based on its products.

Chief executive and corporate vice president of Geneva-based ST Microelectronics Asia Pacific, Francois Guibert, said Thailand was regarded as part of the company's flagship market, and a representative presence was seen as a "must".

The total available market for semiconductors in Thailand in 2007 was about US$2.3 billion (Bt80.47 billion), following Malaysia's $5.5 billion and Singapore's $16.5 billion. At the same time, the total available market in the whole Asia-Pacific region was valued at around $46 billion and the company's sales in the region were about $1.9 billion, giving it plenty of room for expansion, he said.

ST Microelectronics' Bangkok office will focus initially not only on sales and marketing but also on plans to provide an application development lab and system and solution support for its global and local customers in Thailand within the next two years.

Then, it plans to set up competency and design centres.

"We want to help local businesses to develop," Guibert said. "Our role is to enable local companies to build their own electronic solutions. We want to become a partner for local electronic companies, to co-develop electronic businesses in Thailand.

"Even though, in the initial stages, most of our revenue will come from international customers, we want a balance of international and local customers in the future."  

He said ST Microelectronics would expand its application development lab in the new Bangkok office to help customers in Thailand to move up the value chain in their product creation process.

"Throughout the Asia-Pacific region, excluding China, our operations cover the entire value chain, from product development and engineering, through wafer fabrication, testing and packing, applications and logistics, to marketing and sales," Guibert said, adding that his company sought to help strengthen the local software, embedded and electronic industries.  

"We want to provide our technologies so local businesses can develop their own products, with their own brands, rather than simply outsourcing. There is a high volume of applications for local development."

He said that Thailand was an active market for ST Microelectronics, and the European company had its eyes on both the consumer and industrial sectors.

In the consumer sector, it targets home appliances as well as computers and peripheral products. In these areas there are many local manufacturers. In the industrial sector it is interested in lighting, power supply, electronic measurement and microcontroller systems.

ST Microeletronics normally operates in three sectors of the electronics industry: the automotive, consumer, computer and telecom-infrastructure sector, the industrial and multi-segment sector and the wireless product sector. These sectors generate 40.2 per cent, 33.4 per cent and 25.9 per cent of the company's revenue, respectively.

It serves five main market segments: telecom, industrial, consumer, computer, and automobile, which generate 40 per cent, 16 per cent, 16 per cent, 15 per cent and 13 per cent of total revenue, respectively.