For the first time in many years, we are also producing Logitech products outside Asia, said Erh-Hsun Chang, Logitech’s senior vice president and operations general manager, Far East. Working with an external manufacturer in Europe to complement our existing production facilities in Asia brings us several clear benefits. First, having a production site in Europe allows us to respond even more quickly to the changing demands of our customers across the European region. Second, by shortening our supply chain in this way, we are using our working capital more efficiently.
Logitech products continue to be enviably successful right across Europe, said Steve Daverio, vice president of retail sales and marketing for Logitech Europe. Logitech’s strong growth is based on producing high quality products, and in particular on the continually excellent response to our cordless mice and keyboards. We have chosen Orion to supplement our existing production capacity for cordless products, as they will enable us to continue to meet the same demanding standards, with the added flexibility that comes from using an external production partner. The fact that Orion is located in Hungary, fairly close to our European distribution centre in Holland, is an advantage. Many large companies already produce their goods in Hungary, so the infrastructure to meet our needs is already in place.
In the previous fiscal year Logitech sold over 80 million products. By value, approximately 25% of these products were produced externally, by partners in Asia Pacific. The company recently announced its intention to increase the ratio of products produced externally, to approximately 50% by production value, by the end of fiscal year 2003 (March 31, 2003).
A further announcement about a contract manufacturer to supply goods for the Americas market will be made before end of the company’s financial year, at the end of March 2002.
SOURCE: COMPANY PRESS RELEASE
