Press and News - 01.11.2001

New u-blox subsidiary in Asia Pacific

u-blox is strengthening its presence in the Asia Pacific market. This manufacturer of miniature electronic GPS position sensing systems has now founded its new subsidiary in the Asia Pacific, offering better support to its customers in the Asia Pacific market.

"Geographically, Hong Kong is approximately the mid-point to most of the markets in Asia Pacific. Therefore, placing the Asia Pacific headquarter in Hong Kong enables us to be close to our customers and distributors, allowing us to provide them with the best and timely support. Our products are already of the superior quality and reliability in the industry. Providing excellent support to our customers and distribution partners is our next goal," says Peter Wang, General Manager and Managing Director of the new sales company u-blox Asia Pacific Ltd. responsible for this market area.

"Asia Pacific has world's largest current GPS market in Japan. And the potential markets, such as China, in this region will provide our industry with the future high growth. This Asia Pacific market is extremely important to us", says Dr. Claus Habiger, u-blox board member responsible for marketing and sales. "Our strategic goal is to be a preferred position-sensor supplier to the Asia Pacific hand-held & mobile device, automotive and telecommunication industries. The establishment of u-blox Asia Pacific will serve to understand our customer needs even better, to improve our response to market changes more quickly and to enable us to develop the emerging market opportunities."

As a market leader in miniature GPS receivers, u-blox offers OEM customers a decisive competitive edge in new ventures - mature technology with a faster time-to-market. Founded in 1997, u-blox is now a leading supplier to OEM customers in the microelectronics industry. u-blox offers innovative solutions for a wide range of GPS (telecommunications, fleet management, car navigation, tracking systems, aeronautics, military, security). In 1998 u-blox launched the first generation of GPS receiver modules: GPS-MS1 and GPS-PS1. The offering was then extended with software additions enabling the integration of additional system functions in GPS receivers. u-blox now offers solutions for applications demanding minimal power consumption and space requirement, low cost and long service life. In Q3 2001 u-blox has launched the second generation of its GPS receiver modules: TIM. TIM is a fully self-contained low-cost GPS receiver. From the innovative packaging technology, it can be handled as a single chip component. This concept of a macro-component GPS receiver is the ideal solution for high volume application with stringent space requirements.

About u-blox

u-blox currently employs a workforce of 38 at locations in Switzerland, Germany, Hong Kong, England and the USA. In the last fiscal year, sales totalled some CHF 17 million (sales in 1999 came to CHF 2 million and in 1998 to CHF 200,000). Edzard Reuter, former Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler-Benz, is president of the u-blox Board.

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