India could catch China up as the largest market for M2M products and services in south-east Asia, according to Kyung Jun Lee, Telit’s marketing director for the Asia-Pacific region.
In an exclusive interview for M2M Now! at this week’s Taitronics electronics exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan, Lee (pictured) said: “Our sales are growing, especially in China. It is a big market. We have several local competitors in China, but we have a quality product. We are confident in the quality of the product.”
He said that the bulk of the sales in China were for automatic meter reading applications but the firm was also finding a healthy consumer market with tablet PCs and handheld devices.
“We are also selling our modules for point-of-sale applications because they need the high quality,” he said.
However, he said the market in India was starting to catch up.
“India should be one of the largest markets in the region,” he said. “They are also using our modules for automatic meter reading and PoS, but telematics is big there for fleet management and there are a number of short-range sensor network applications.”
At present, Telit is not selling into Japan, but that may change soon.
“Japan is a very closed market,” he said. “They have specialist frequencies. But we will go for that market in the near future but not yet.”
In South Korea, where the company has its headquarters, Lee claims that it has more than 50% market share, helped by two government projects. On is for tagging sexual criminals and the other involves the installation of M2M terminals in the homes of elderly people living alone.
“They can detect motion, gas and other elements and if they detect something strange then they will send an alert and officers will be dispatched to check,” said Lee.
