A Chinese Commercial Giant in the Making?

By staff reporter ZHANG XUEYING

     AT the 2008 Summer Davos Forum held in Tianjin, China Today saw Feng Jun spare no effort in demonstrating his products to visitors. At that moment, it was really difficult to imagine he was the CEO of Beijing Huaqi (Aigo) Information Digital Technology Co., Ltd.

    In 1993 Feng Jun started a business selling computer boxes and keyboards. Now the Chinese market share of Aigo's MP3 players is twice that of Samsung and ten times that of Sony. Its MP4 player sales rank first on the Chinese mainland, and the company has produced the highest selling USB flash drives on the Chinese market for eight consecutive years. Aigo also has branches in six other countries, such as France, Singapore and India. This medium-sized firm with only 1,900 staff is increasing its sales by 60 percent annually.

    Over the past 37 years, attendees at the Davos Forum have mostly been CEOs from the world's top 500 enterprises. But Mr. Klaus Schwab, founder of the forum, understands that the development of the world's economy is not only decided by these large enterprises. More and more growth-oriented newly emerging multinationals are developing at a fast pace in the global market. In recent years, the organizers of the forum started to notice these "Young Global Leaders." Feng in particular stood out.

    "These young leaders share common characteristics, in that they are creative and have pioneering spirit. They change people's lives by inventing new products and offering new services. They promote economic growth," says Hu Zuliu, managing director of Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C.

    The newest Aigo product is the Aigo MID. "It is thinner than a coin and lighter than a bottle of water," says Feng. This small square gadget enables users to visit websites, share videos, receive and send emails, chat via QQ, do online shopping, and more. In contrast to accessing the Internet via cell phones, MID users can not only read emails, but also write and send them. In addition, users can buy goods online, not just browse products. And it has another unique advantage — translate English and Chinese photographed text. According to Feng, Aigo is always striving to make its products more convenient.

    Aigo's MID completely changed the mind of critics who had charged that the company was not creative enough. Feng told China Today: "Aigo invests 80 percent of its annual profits in research and development (R&D) every year, which is almost impossible in many other companies. We now own over 600 patents, with more than 200 invented by ourselves. The president of Intel is very interested in Aigo MID. Not long ago he came to China and discussed the possibility of cooperation with us. Aigo's MID was the first to be able to translate photographed text. The iphone producers feel rather nervous now because they consider our MID to be a major rival," Feng says proudly.