Zebra Technologies Corp, the world's No. 1 specialty printer producer, plans to move parts of its manufacturing operations to China from the United States next year.
It will be the company's first overseas venture, Zebra Chief Executive Anders Gustafsson said in Shanghai last Friday.
A pilot project is under way in Guangzhou in southern Guangdong Province.
At present the company make all their products in the US but from next year China will also manufacture the company's entire range, including barcode printers and advanced models with RFID (radio frequency identification) or GPS (global positioning system), according to Gustafsson.
"Today, China is taking center stage and its growth is the highest among all regions (for Zebra products)," said Gustafsson, who expected more than 50 percent of Zebra's 2007 expected revenue of US$855 million to come from business outside the US.
China is Zebra's third regional market behind the US and the UK.
Here, Zebra's revenue growth rate reached 53 percent in the third quarter from a year ago, compared with 25 percent globally, according to Andrew Tay, Zebra's Asia Pacific president.
Zebra China will expand in the country into healthcare, logistic and government sectors, according to Tay.
In 2007, Zebra spent US$285 million to acquire three firms to expand their business to the RFID and asset tracking sectors.
China's RFID market revenue was 1.07 billion yuan (US$144.6 million) in the second quarter, a 23-percent growth year-on-year and the market will expand next year due to the Olympics, according to Analysys International, a Beijing-based IT consulting firm.