IFA 2011: Taiwanese companies look to Europe

Taiwanese companies were heavily represented at this year's IFA Berlin technology show, with a hall also showing off the winners of this year's Taiwan Excellence awards. But the country's tech firms are also looking forward to next year's Computex Taipei show. We caught up with Mr Jeremy Horng, Executive Director of the Exhibition Department of TAITRA, which organises the annual event.

This year's Computex show - see our reports here - completely packed the city's exhibition halls, so we asked if it was possible that the show could expand next year.

Mr Horng said that until the second Nangang hall is completed - it's due in roughly three years - there is little space for expansion, although the show might be able to include one to two hundred more booths in 2012.

We also asked about the relationship between Taiwanese tech companies and Europe, as TAITRA has had an increased presence at European events such as CeBIT and IFA this year. He said that the "European market is most important for Taiwanese companies - even for the past few years, with the not very good economic environment" in the region.

It seems likely that Taiwan will continue to expand its marketing and branding overseas as companies such as HTC are successful at making the leap from simply manufacturing products - Taiwanese firms produce three laptops, three mobile phones and three LCD displays every second, according to ITRI - to selling them as consumer brands.

"The trend at the moment is to combine mobile technology and IT, and Taiwan has a few companies that are very famous in this sector, such as HTC", said Mr Horng. "More and more of Taiwan's companies want to have their own brand name".