US company expands presence in ASEAN market, targeting Vietnam

Cognex representatives receives a lucky card at the launch ceremony of its new office (Photo: VNA)
 
Vietnam is an impressive emerging market with a rapid increase of foreign direct investment (FDI) as well as the appearance of mega-factories in recent years, stimulating technology corporations to expand their presence here.

The statement was made by Eric Moon, Vice President and head of Asia sales at Cognex Corporation at the launch of its new office on in Singapore on February 18.

Cognex Corporation is one of the world’s leading suppliers of industrial barcode readers and machine vision.

The expansion in Singapore comes on the back of the company launching its first local office in Vietnam in 2017, and will provide a strong base for Cognex to consolidate and coordinate the company’s efforts as it looks to tap into the huge potential of the burgeoning manufacturing industry in ASEAN, specifically Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.

Emerging markets across the region are experiencing increased demand for manufacturing, contributing to steady growth of the overall economy. According to a manufacturing production index compiled by the Japan Centre for Economic Research, there will be a 6.2 percent year-on-year growth for key markets across Southeast Asia.

According to Wayne Goh, head of ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand at Cognex, Vietnam is a potential market for manufacturing development and the country accounted for 40 percent of Cognex’s regional sales. 

The key manufacturing industries Cognex is targeting in Vietnam are the electronics, automobile and motorbike sectors, with well-known foreign manufacturers such as Samsung, LG and Foxconn already utilising the company’s machine vision technologies in their factories.

The Cognex representative said besides targeting foreign enterprises operating in Vietnam, Cognex would focus on approaching local firms to help increase the quality and lower the cost of manufacturing across all industries through error proofing product assembly lines, detecting defects, identifying and tracking items for manufacturing and logistics, and providing robot guidance.

“Vingroup is one of our target customers at the moment, with the booming development of its manufacturing factories recently,” Moon said.

Cognex is the world’s leader in the machine vision industry, having shipped more than 1 million vision-based products, representing over 4 billion USD in cumulative revenue, since the company’s founding in 1981.

Headquartered in Massachusetts, the US, Cognex has regional offices and distributors located throughout the America, Europe and Asia./.

VNS/VNA