IBM is to more than triple its PC manufacturing capacity in China with a new 40,000 square metre facility in Shekou, just over the border from Hong Kong in the Shenzhen special economic zone. The new PC assembly plant will come online at the end of next year, with an annual capacity of 4 million computers compared to about 1.2 million at IBM’s current joint venture plant in Shekou which opened in 1994.
Like the existing 7,000 square meter plant, which will be closed down, the new facility will be run by International Information Products (Shenzhen) Company (IIPC), a 70:30 joint venture between IBM and Great Wall, China’s oldest, and one of its largest, IT product manufacturers.
IIPC general manager Willi J Stark said that IBM is building the new factory because it predicts huge demand both in China and neighboring countries. IBM claims to be the second-largest PC seller after domestic giant Legend in the fast-growing Chinese market. It also this year started exporting from Shekou to all the Southeast Asian countries as well as South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India. In October, it will start supplying Japan. The acceptance of IBM ‘made in China’ PCs in Japan would be a real success, because the quality requirements are so stringent in Japan, said Stark. About 60% of the components in the PCs from the Shekou factory are currently made in China.
