By

Henry Wong

———

My name is Henry Wong, I am one of the share holders of UNIMETRO metrology, I will tell you a true story, to show you what has happened in the last 15 years of the Chinese metrology market.

*All the mentioned points in this article only stand for my personal opinion. And it is only for sharing some of my personal experience and feeling, no offense to any of the brands or personal names mentioned below.

In 2007, I was graduated from one of the best business school in China, then I joined Easson, where I started my career. In those years 3 names are the most popular and well accepted in the Chinese metrology market, Easson, Rational and 3D Family. Also these 3 brands were starting to enter the global market and selling their products in many countries.

Looking back from now, that was exactly the starting point of a great industrial revolution in China which would last for long time until nowadays. Before then China was well known as a world factory, living on labor-intensive industries.

Easson was supplying linear encoders, profile projectors and vision measurement machines. Our main customers were molding, platic injection, pressing, toys industry…etc, which were relatively low end industries, and all the measuring application were quite simple. Also, there were not that much of competition because of information asymmetry, so we were selling really good in both the domestic and global market, which led to very fast development of Easson brand in very short time. For the other 2 big brands mentioned above were facing similar situation.

Then in Jan 2007, Mr. Steve Jobs introduced his Iphone to the world. Also, he put his production line in China. Just some months later, in Nov 2007, Google launched Android Beta version. I take this year as the first year of the Chinese industrial revolution. Since then the Chinese industry structure had been changed, from molding, plastic, metal to electroinics. Also means, from raw material industry to technology integration industry. Afterwards, Huawei, Xiaomi and BAT (Internet giant Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) rised up. These names changed our business and life totally in very short period.