During the company’s growing and developing process over the past few years, Biwin Technology Limited has been putting high value on credit standing and has been down-to-earth in its progressing. To get some knowledge about Biwin’s current operating situation and its 2009 outlook, DRAMeXchange has recently visited Biwin president Sun Rixin, who has shared with us his viewpoints and suggestions on the flash memory industry.

Oriented to professional Flash memory, to steadily advance forward

To be a professional Flash provider has been set as Biwin’s overall position. Currently, Biwin’s products have covered almost the whole Flash memory market, including USB flash disks, MP3 players, SD cards, SSDs and so on. According to the products portion by the end of 2008, USB flash disks, MP3 players and memory cards respectively represents 80%, 10% and 10% of the total product output.

The customer base in USB flash disk part is relatively steady, said president Sun. As well as maintaining the existing USB flash disk customers, the company also hopes to improve the market status of its cards and MP3 player products, and is aiming to realize the same, or even larger output of the cards products than the USB flash disks.

When questioned with Biwin’s 2009 operating outlook, Sun pointed out that the 2008 average monthly sales revenue was around US$13million, which was a remarkable sum. And the 1Q09 sales is around RMB 230million, growing substantially comparing with RMB 210million of the same period last year, also a remarkable result for a traditional slow season. The company expects the total sales of the following quarters to reach RMB 250million.

Face the economic downturn in a placid mood

With OEM/ODM as the chief operating pattern, Biwin has been providing quality services to other companies with its high-level manufacturing capacities, and has got favored by many of the customers. The company’s businesses mainly aim at overseas markets and have not been expanded to domestic market yet.

During the global economic crisis, Biwin’s clients, which are mainly foreign manufactures, are facing competitive pressure with the other vendors, indirectly influencing Biwin at the same time. Despite this, with a smile president Sun said that Biwin didn’t lay off staff or cut salaries like many other companies, but has instead increased salaries for rewarding the staff. There are two reasons accounting for this decision, said Sun, firstly, from the objective perspective, Biwin has lost some old clients, but at the same time has won more new clients, so the total customer number is increasing, and orders are increasing too. Secondly, Biwin has always kept a positive and placid mood in face of the economic crisis, said Sun. Since the market is open to all, as long as a company does its own job well enough, recognition from market and clients will naturally follows, so there should not be pressure at all.

President Sun also added that unlike a single company crisis, the economic crisis is global phenomenon in which all companies are under threatening influence. Biwin has felt the pressure too, but only to a small extent. To better understand the influence, you can say the business is not growing as fast as expected, but it is growing after all.

About CES and Hong Kong China Sourcing Fair

The CES Biwin has participated in for several times, President Sun said. And the company has established a pleasant partnership with a customer group in the U.S., and been gaining much from each exhibit while winning new customers every year. It is all normal this year, said Sun, though the participants in Hong Kong China Sourcing Fair are much less than before, which hasn’t much influenced Biwin for all the expected customers were present and the number of clients also increased.

At the Hong Kong China Sourcing Fair this year, Biwin introduced a new MLC-based product with a writing speed as high as 20~24M/sec, also the fastest USB flash disk series as far as Biwin is concerned.

About SSD and Flash memory market

Biwin has also expanded its business into the SSD field. Biwin is not to do partial work, said Sun, but will concentrate on making finished products well. When the market rallies, only with integrative production line can a company do good marketing, said Sun. Talking about SSD market in the later half of 2009, Sun said there are a lot of influencing factors on this market, most of them related to the cost and quality of products. Applications of SSDs are being expanded, like in high-end notebooks, but the main application field in the later half of the year should be in Netbooks, said Sun. He also pointed out that the SSD technology is relatively open now, and a couple of companies have been doing well in this part. Under this situation, if cost of Flash memory lowers down, the sales of SSDs can be expected to rise substantially.

It will just be a small beginning of the SSD market in later half of 2009, while 2010 will be a big beginning, he predicts.

The customer group of Biwin has covered every aspects of the market. However, from the situation in April, orders are relatively less, and ordering rate is very low with customers all complaining about the high prices of Flash memories. In the supplier aspect, the heading supplier is not as tough as before, which means a slide down. Sun also added that if products like SSDs are to be used in large scale, the price of Flash will surely drop.

Meantime, President Sun pointed out that the Flash price increasing is only a temporary happening, and some time is needed for the market to be adjusted and transmitted. In the latter half of the year the price should certainly lower down.

Suggestion: Win credit on basis of honesty while exerting advantage through communication

A company is inevitably under continuous impacts during the process of growing. Similarly, the customers could receive various disturbances influencing their choice. And the reason why Biwin is gaining more clients when losing some is the reliability and creditability of its products. So, after comparing of different vendors, customers mostly resume the partnership with Biwin eventually. President Sun suggested that a company should be steadfast and honest in its operating and manufacturing, then it can win credit from customers and form a reliable image. 

On the other hand, president Sun also suggested a company to do more communication with customers and make more publicity on media. As interpersonal communication is important for an individual, communication with outside is also crucial for a growing enterprise. As the old saying goes, good wine needs no bush, thus Sun suggested companies in this industry to do more communications with customers and make more publicity on media, in this way can the advantages of the company and characteristics of its products be more known by the customers, which will help the company develop better.