International Network: Malaysia Marketing and Sales Company

Renesas Technology Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.

Earning Design Wins as the ASEAN Electronics Market Expands beyond Manufacturing and Adds R&D Activities

In recent years, Malaysia has placed a major focus on growing its electronics industry, encouraging investment from Japan and other countries. With this growth, the country has expanded its role from being a base for manufacturing to also becoming a home for research and development. In response, Renesas established Renesas Technology Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (RTML) in May 2005. Based in Malaysia, RTML acts as a marketing company for Renesas' Singapore sales company, Renesas Technology Singapore Pte. Ltd. (RTSP), building awareness of the Renesas brand and seeking more business in the ASEAN market. To gain some insight into the organization and its goals, we talked with Masumi Igawa, RTML's Senior General Manager. With a view to Malaysia's future growth as a development center, he said that his company seeks to increase the number of design wins for Renesas solutions by providing customers with comprehensive support during the product development phase.

Edge: Please explain the background to the establishment of the Renesas sales base in Malaysia.

Igawa: Renesas Technology Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (abbreviated below as RTML) was established on May 1st, 2005 to provide Malaysian customers with better, more comprehensive support. We recognized that there are many companies with operations here that use Renesas products. They include local companies in the air conditioning industry, Japanese companies manufacturing AV equipment, and other foreign companies involved in fields such as EMS and automotive products. We saw, too, that the Malaysian semiconductor market continues to grow year on year, causing other IC makers to set up new branches and factories in this country. So we determined that in order to maintain our competitiveness it was very important to establish a local base for Renesas. Our primary goals were to promote sales of Renesas products in Malaysia and build the Renesas brand.

Another factor in our decision was the changing nature of the electronics industry here. In the past, Malaysia had long been thought of only as a base for manufacturing. Recently, however, a number of customers have been setting up research and development centers in Malaysia. The expanding R&D activity is opening up new opportunities for us to get more business.

Edge: What is the state of the semiconductor market in Malaysia?

Igawa: A research company has estimated the Malaysian semiconductor market in 2005 to be about 7.5 billion US dollars. This figure represented an 11 percent growth from the previous year. Looking ahead long term, electronic products are expected to remain one of Malaysia's top exports and the Malaysian government intends to continue offering incentives to the electronics industry. This is encouraging foreign companies to expand their production facilities, including establishing more R&D operations, and it's expected to result in the transfer of much technology and know-how to Malaysia.

Edge: Please explain the organizational structure of RTML and the nature of its business.

Igawa: RTML's role is to act as a marketer for Renesas Technology Singapore Pte. Ltd. (abbreviated below as RTSP), the Renesas sales company based in Singapore, and to provide a wide range of services to customers in Malaysia. RTSP president Yoshitsugu Tamakoshi has responsibility for RTML, which has a marketing department split into two separate teams. One team is one responsible for supporting Japanese companies, while the other is responsible for supporting local and other foreign companies. At RTML, we also have a product-marketing department responsible for specialist technical support for customers' products, as well as a business planning department and a corporate department.

Additionally, we have established the RTML Penang office in the factory run by Renesas Semiconductor (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd. (abbreviated below as RSM). Field application engineers from RTML will use this office for supporting customers in Penang.

Edge: What is the role of RTML within the Renesas group?

Igawa: As part of the Renesas group, one of RTML's role is to gather information about the needs of customers in Malaysia and convey this back to headquarters in Japan. Customer's needs keep changing, so as a marketing company we are developing an organization that can understand what is happening and feed back the latest information as appropriate. This not only allows us to provide our customers in Malaysia with more flexible support, it also means we can continue to develop the products they require.

Edge: What products and applications are you focusing on?

Igawa: In the Malaysian market, we are focusing on consumer products (DVD products, audio equipment, TVs, tuners, remote controls, etc.) and on local design wins in the automotive and air conditioning sectors. Renesas is a leading supplier of microcomputers and our strategy at RTML is to concentrate on the main microcomputer product lines. Of course, we are also putting effort into selling general-purpose products such as transistors, diodes, linear ICs, and logic, and, in particular, into strengthening our sales of the products manufactured by RSM.

In marketing our solutions to customers, we also receive engineering support from the Singapore-based design and application engineering company, Renesas System Solutions Asia Pte. Ltd. (abbreviated below as RSS). We are also trying to help our customers speed up their product development cycles so they can bring new products to market in the shortest possible time.

Edge: What are Renesas' strengths in Malaysia?

Igawa: Renesas was formed by the merger of the Hitachi semiconductor group and the semiconductor business of Mitsubishi Electric. Thanks to the synergies resulting from this merger, we are coming to be recognized by growing numbers of customers as a business partner, a company that can deliver higher levels of satisfaction by providing high-quality support.

Further, we have a manufacturing presence in Penang, which means that we can provide fast delivery through our direct access to the products produced there. RTML and RSM are working together to promote sales in Malaysia and support our customers.

Edge: What are your current objectives and planned activities?

Igawa: Our most important objective is to increase the number of design wins we achieve in Malaysia. Currently, most of RTML's business relates to products for which the design win was obtained elsewhere. In order to strengthen the sales we obtain from products developed here, RTML, RTSP, RSS, and headquarters in Japan are working very closely together to provide optimum solutions to our corporate customers. We cooperate to support the growing R&D activities of Malaysian businesses and thereby enable successful designs containing Renesas products.