Shanghai will host one of the two offices of ams Osram’s new China Development Center, aimed at boosting the company’s local presence in “Greater China.” [Image: Wangwukong / Getty Images]
In a significant nod to the China market, the global sensor and illumination company ams Osram announced on 12 August that it has launched its China Development Center (CDC), a vehicle that the company hopes will help drive “business growth and technological innovation within Greater China.”
In a press release unveiling the center, ams Osram vice president and CDC head Jose Vinau expressed the expectation that the center would let the firm “react more quickly to market shifts and strengthen our competitive position in the fields of lighting, sensing, and visualization,” and would enable Chinese clients “to accelerate product implementation and achievement.”
Boosting business development in China
Co-headquartered in Premstaetten/Graz, Austria, and Munich, Germany, ams Osram employs some 20,000 workers worldwide. In recent years, the company—which had a long history in conventional and specialty lighting—has pursued a reorganization divesting many of these traditional businesses, and reorienting operations toward faster-growing segments, such as high-tech semiconductor devices, in niche illumination, visualization and sensing applications.
The CDC will sit within ams Osram’s CMOS, Sensors and ASIC (CSA) business unit. The company says the center brings together expertise in marketing, systems and applications engineering, and “supply-chain innovation.”
ams Osram views the CDC as “vital for boosting business development and revenue growth in Greater China.”
According to the press release, ams Osram views the CDC as “vital for boosting business development and revenue growth in Greater China.” The firm believes the center can achieve this through maintaining “close contact with customers,” and plans to open its first two CDC offices in Shenzhen and Shanghai, focusing on “three core pillars”: business development, applications engineering and supply-chain issues. The company’s statement also touted “remarkable design wins” it said the CDC has already achieved in smartphone sensors, computed tomography and automotive position sensors.
“In China, for China”
ams Osram’s use of the label “Greater China” injects an interesting bit of ambiguity in the announcement. The term is generally used to embody not only the mainland People’s Republic of China (including Hong Kong and Macau), but also other areas that share “cultural and economic ties” with China, including Taiwan and even, in some contexts, Singapore.
However it is defined, the company views the market as “dynamic and rapidly growing” and an “attractive opportunity.” The CDC initiative, the firm argues, will “be key in adapting ams OSRAM’s operations to the local environment,” and will “strengthen ams OSRAM's leadership position in the Chinese market while driving the company’s global growth.”