[TechCrunch Shanghai] Hardware, New Opportunities for China Internet?

At TechCrunch Shanghai, a few insiders in Chinese hardware community took the stage to share their insights tabout the future of Chinese hardware industry, including founder of TMI and HWTrek Lucas Wang, CTO of Orange Labs International Center Beijing Dong Song, Director of Hunan University Media Lab (Shenzhen) Yan Qifeng, CEO of inWatch Neo Wang, and Special Assistant to Chairman & Chief Investment Director at Foxconn Charles Pan.

Yan, who comes from heart of China’s electronic manufacturing industry Shenzhen, said that local manufacturing companies started to design their own products and sell them through homegrown ecommerce channels, rather than foreign distribution channels.

Service is changing the manufacturing landscape, said Pan. He added that Foxconn will stick to OEM business, despite the fact that they already have the capabilities to do anything from component to assembly. They want to leverage the capability to create open hardware ecosystem so as to better serve both big companies like Apple and small innovative companies.

In order to help smaller projects to find trusted partners, Lucas Wang founded HWTrek, an open platform which invites supply chain experts on different verticals, and therefore, startups get to know what are their previous products and whether they are qualified.

Lucas and Neo agreed that smaller manufactures are better options for startups which just started their business.