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TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 02-03/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
Receiver Manufacturer Panodic, China
The Big Expansion
of Panodic
In 1999 three technically enthusias-
tic young entrepreneurs founded the
company MICO in Hong Kong. Their
first product: a DVD player. Since then
they have gotten larger and larger so
that today they are one of the top five
receiver manufacturers in China with
more than 1200 production employ-
ees and over 100 R&D engineers. The
technology and marketing departments
are located in the Shenzhen High Tech
Park; the production facility is only a
half hour car ride away in Fuyong in the
Bao’an District. We paid a visit to both
facilities to see for ourselves how Pan-
odic managed to get this far.
So, obviously the first question is
this: is the company name MICO or
Panodic? Marketing Director Alan Yu
has the answer for us: “The company
MICO Hongkong still exists and is the
parent company of the Panodic Group.
MICO has its headquarters in Hong
Kong and that’s where you’ll also find
the Panodic Group’s financial manage-
ment and logistics.”
Panodic itself was founded in Shen-
zhen in 2009 and sold their products
under this name to the local market in
China. The company’s products are also
exported under every possible brand
name, just not the Panodic name. “We
export as an OEM and ODM manufac-
turer and don’t use our name at all.”
In addition to the production facility
in Bao’an, the Panodic Group also in-
cludes a branch office in Beijing. “20
engineers work there primarily on our
IP receiver’s software. The domestic
sales team can also be found there.”
For the Chinese market, Panodic offers
primarily DVB-C and IPTV receivers.
“TV and Internet are constantly merg-
ing closer and closer together; we are
integrating Internet services with our
DVB-C receivers.”
Panodic started exporting their DVB
products in 2005. “The first receiver
that we manufactured for export was
a DVB-T receiver for Great Britain”, re-
members Alan Yu. That was also the
time that Panodic expanded into the
then new receiver business. “Panod-
ic’s R&D engineers have accomplished
quite a bit in just a short time: “We’re
introducing a new combination receiver
for DVB-S2 and DVB-T as well as for
DVB-S2 and ISDB-T.” A Linux-based IP
box was also completed just now.
“An interesting niche is DVB-T mod-
ules for reception in a car.” This mod-
ule with DVB-T/MPEG4 is connected to
the DVD players video screen in the
car.” Rear seated passengers can use
a remote control to change channels
while the car is in motion.” The driver
of course is looking out the front win-
dow at the traffic. Panodic is planning
to make this product available in the
first quarter of 2012.
“We’re also working on projectors”,
said Alan Yu surprisingly. Sure enough,
in these days of HD there are more
and more viewers interested in TV
projectors. “A projector really makes
HD beautiful”, he comments and then
promises, “The first samples are al-
ready completed with production set to
begin in the second quarter of 2012.”
3D can’t be all that far away then. “In
the third quarter of 2012 we’ll also be
introducing receivers with integrated
3D converters.”
Where can you find Panodic’s prod-
ucts? “In 2011 we still only sold about
10% of our products domestically here
in China. The remaining 90% were ex-
ported. In 2012 it will shift to about
20% domestic and 80% export.” Alan
Yu is expecting to see an increase in
DVB-C as well as ABS, the Chinese digi-
tal satellite TV standard.
But the Marketing Director is con-
Company founder:
You Zhen Yu. He and
two other partners
founded MICO in
1999 and Panodic in
2003.
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