Beijing UniStrong Science & Technology, the largest vendor of GPS products in China, has begun outsourcing the production of its own-brand PND products to the Foxconn (Hon Hai) Group and Foxlink, according to industry sources. The China-based vendor previously sold Garmin's PND products on sales agent commission basis.
With China's basketball star Yao Ming as one of its major shareholders, share prices of UniStrong have soared over 165% to close at 98.3 yuan (US$14.401) on the Small and Medium Enterprise board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on April 6 compared to its IPO price of 37 yuan launched on April 2.
Given that only 4% of cars sold in the China market are equipped with in-car GPS devices, UniStrong has great potential for further development, commented the sources, indicating that sales of vehicles totaled 13 million units in China in 2009.
Additionally, UniStrong has also teamed up with Taiwan-based Gigabyte Communications to market Gigabyte's dual-mode, GPS-enabled smartphones in China, revealed the sources. UniStrong posted revenues of 426 million yuan in 2009, according to company data.
