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82 SMT Magazine • June 2017 SHENZHEN AXXON DISCUSSES ACQUISITION AND DISPENSING MARKET TRENDS The current product lineup of Mycronic and Axxon are pretty much complementary. Las Marias: Speaking of the China market, how would you describe the landscape for Axxon? What are the challenges that you're facing there? Li: Competition in the China market is very fierce, because the market is huge. Not only are a lot of overseas brands gradually building up their Asia offices and seeking to do more busi- ness in China, but within China, there are a lot of local companies rising up and doing the same thing as we are. Some local suppliers who are doing other kinds of machines have gradually shifted to the dispensing field within last two or three years. There are a lot of new- comers. But from our point of view, when it comes to dispensing, we are a very focused company and we have accumulated a lot of experience in this segment. We understand the market, the process, and the trends. That is our advantage. We will continue to focus on our area. We're not expanding to different segments; we are confident we can deal with the competition in this market. More focus means a higher possi- bility for success. Las Marias: From your experience, what are the major technical challenges that your customers face when it comes to dispensing? Li: In the electronics manufacturing field, our customers are challenged with more and more requirements for integration. They're not only required to provide professional solutions in the dispensing process, but also post-dispens- ing—the inspection—and if there is something wrong, some automatic repair. These are relevant requirements around the dispensing industry, and in this kind of situa- tion we try to provide our customers a total so- lution; not only on dispensing, but also on the relevant processes. That's what we are now deal- ing with, those kinds of challenges. Actually, in the past two or three years, we found this di- rection to be correct and we've brought a lot of benefits to our customers, and the market rec- ognizes it. Las Marias: What are the market trends that you're seeing right now? Li: In our point of view, the home market will be targeted more on dispensing application re- quirements. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many newcomers here, so the demand is in- creasing. On the other hand, the market has higher demand on quality and reliability. Also, Industry 4.0 is really popular and we need to embrace the concept when we're providing so- lutions or designing machines. Another point is that we think the dispensing field is at a stage where it's reaching a lot of newcomers and ev- erybody suddenly wants to do business; but the market also has different feedback and respons- es to those companies. So, they have to pass the test of the market, and gradually somebody who has the core tech- nology will survive, and somebody who just has very superficial ambitions to get more business in the long term will lose. It needs accumula- tion. That's our understanding of the local mar- ket right now. Las Marias: You mentioned that one of the re- quirements from your customers is integrated Ivan Li