The Business Times: A young Chinese ATM manufacturer, Automated Touchstone Machines, is pitting itself against bigger multi-national companies that have years of experience in the business.
The company was started in 2000 and is led by chief executive Wang Jia.
With an initial capital of 2 million yuan (U.S. $241,648), Automated Touchstone develops, manufactures, sells and maintains self-service banking equipment and software from its Shenzhen factory. In fiscal year 2003, it made a proforma net profit of 8.76 million yuan (U.S. $1 million) on sales of 37.9 million yuan (U.S. $4.5 million), compared to 2002's net profit of 774,000 yuan (U.S. $93,517) and turnover of 12.9 million yuan (U.S. $1.6 million).
It now has more than 3,000 banking machines, including 200 ATMs, installed in 36 locations across China. This is a small share compared to the more than 50,000 ATMs installed by industrial giants such as NCR and Wincor Nixdorf. Even so, the young upstart hopes to get about 20 percent of the ATM market within five years.
