Taipei, Taiwan-based personal computer and notebook manufacturer Mitac International Corp will launch a new range of notebook and personal computers in the first quarter of 1993 to consolidate its plans for major growth in Europe. The new products, aimed at business users, will use the Intel Corp 80486DX2 microprocessor and will be bundled with Microsoft Corp’s Windows NT. No prices were available. Mitac has two other product families: the low-end Popular range, aimed at the consumer and education markets, and the high-end Professional series, which is targeted at corporate customers. Mitac has now relocated its European headquarters from Dusseldorf to Telford, Shropshire, because, it says, the UK is its strongest market – moreover, although Mitac forbore to mention it, Germany’s Nazi thugs tend to assume that all orientals are Vietnamese immigrants and fair game for a beating or worse. The company claims that it didn’t make any redundancies as staff were either relocated or left of their own accord. All sales, marketing, distribution and support activities are now centralised in the UK, although ‘export’ sales to continental Europe are made through 23 local independent distributors. Two small wholly-owned subsidiaries in Germany and France also deal with sales and distribution.

Manufacturing plant

The company boasts 300 distributors and resellers in the UK. European sales currently make up over 50% of Mitac’s $200m turnover, and vice-president of sales and marketing, Europe, Billy Ho, forecasts that in three years, most of the company’s revenues will be generated from the region. Some 60% of Mitac’s European sales come from outside the UK. Projected turnover at Mitac Europe for this fiscal year is about UKP30m, and Ho expects this to increase by UKP10m next year. The remaining European revenue is generated from three distributors that buy direct from Taiwan – Mitac Europe cannot supply the volume of machines that they require, but it is planning to open a manufacturing plant in either the UK or Ireland to rectify the situation. Sites exist only in the US and Taipei at the moment, although boxes are assembled in the UK to suit European requirements. According to market researcher Romtec Ltd’s figures, about 56,000 notebook computers were sold in the UK in 1992. Mitac sold 7,700 of these, giving it a 13.8% market share. Romtec said that 12,000 personal computers were sold in the same time-scale, and as 332,000 of these were Mitac’s, it claims 3.6% of the market. The company anticipates that existing market share in both product areas will grow 20% by this time next year as a result of an extensive advertising campaign and repeat orders. To cope with this hoped-for growth, Mitac has expanded its warehousing and taken on 30 new sales, marketing and technical staff in the last three months – half of which came from Germany. There are now 65 employees at UK headquarters.