facebook rss twitter

Elitegroup Computer Systems - an overview

by Tarinder Sandhu on 17 October 2005, 20:03

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qadtb

Add to My Vault: x

Introduction and history



Elitegroup Computer Systems - a brief look

On the same Friday that HEXUS popped in to see the folks at Foxconn, we took the opportunity to jump across the roundabout kingdom that is Milton Keynes and drop in to see the folks at Elitegroup Computer Systems, better known to the masses as simply ECS.

HEXUS' resident technical maestro, Ryszard, was fortunate enough to visit ECS' production facility in Biloda, China, just outside the World City that is Hong Kong. What surprised him and may surprise you, is the sheer scale of the operation. Take a guess at how many motherboards ECS manufactures a month. If you thought it was, say, 200,000 you'd be out by a factor of least 10. That's right; ECS manufactures around 2,200,000 (2.2 million) motherboards a month, which take the form of ECS-branded (ECS, PCCHIPS) and OEM-designed boards for some high-profile names. Apart from producing motherboards by the million, ECS also manufactures notebooks and PCs for well-known companies who then, usually, brand them with their own names and logos. Much like Foxconn, ECS isn't just big, it's positively huge.

So just how did it all begin? ECS was formed in May 1987 in Taipei, Taiwan, and that's where initial design and manufacturing was undertaken. Steady growth and associated expansion was manifested, by 1991, in ECS regional offices opening up in America, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Canada, and in the U.K. The days of Taiwanese-manufactured motherboards came to an end when China opened its considerable arms up for foreign investment. ShenZhen, a bustling economic metropolis on the border with Chinese-administered Hong Kong, is where ECS chose to lay down roots and construct a mega-production facility that is Biloda, home to massive motherboard, notebook and PC production.

1998 saw Johnson Chiang become the chairman of the board, and he retains that position today. Move on to Y2K and ECS was churning out 1,000,000 motherboards a month and had group revenues of around $500m (U.S. Dollars). By 2002, ECS had successfully launched its DeskNote PCs and had, for the first time through its ECSM company, manufactured over 2,000,000 motherboards a month, split between its own branding and design/manufacturing for others. Incidentally, all of ECS' boards are now made in China.

In terms of market volume, ECS' output makes up something around 20% of the global market. Notebook manufacture isn't something of an afterthought either, as, keeping with the numbers theme, ECS produces around 250,000 units per month. Being just a short drive from Hong Kong harbour and both ShenZhen and Hong Kong airports, ECS' customers have the choice of just how quickly they'd like their order to arrive. It's 3-4 weeks, via sea, for non-urgent stock and 2-3 days via air, although, of course, you'll pay inevitably more.

Fast-forward to today the ECS group now has revenues of around $1.3bn, employs around 10,000 people directly, and has over 600 staff dedicated to research and development, split over its Taipei and ShenZhen sites. It's this kind of size that allows it to have some design fun and come up with novel designs that smaller companies simply cannot undertake. The obvious, recent example that springs to mind is its PF88 Extreme LGA775-based motherboard that was architected to run with an Athlon 64 CPU, via an add-in card. ECS also plans to open sales/marketing offices in Russia and Brazil this year, too. It's telling that these offices are opening in emerging markets, exactly the kind of environment that low-cost mainboards are targetted at, and it's no coincidence that ECS has a 50% motherboard market share in China and Latin America.

It was with an appreciation of these facts and figures that we headed over to the U.K. offices, to grill and question Andrew Tseng, the spin doctor:) (erm, Marketing Manager) about what's new and exciting in the world of ECS.