Taiwan’s major players have a flair for innovation to add to their vast experience. Phil Clegg finds out more

Taiwan has for a long time been one of the world’s leading sources of coin-op amusement machine manufacture.

It still is, but things have changed. The emergence of mainland China as a major force in manufacturing has had an inevitable impact on the Taiwanese industry. It has encouraged the Taiwan-based manufacturers to take one of two routes.

The first route is to open an additional factory in China and the second has been to increase the quality of the products in order to enhance the perception of Taiwan as the home of high quality brands.

Taiwan certainly has the advantage of longevity, with the majority of the companies featured in the special issue having been around for 20 or 30 years or more. This wealth of experience is one of the reasons why so many innovative products are coming out of Taiwan at the moment.

They are also companies that have, historically, been keen to engage with the international market place, making them an important part of Taiwan’s export business. Many have also set up branches in other parts of the world.

“Europe is our most important market, but North America, Latin America and south-east Asia are also very good,” payment solutions specialist ICT’s Richard Yang told InterGame at this year’s GTI Taiwan trade show. “The only region where we could see future growth is Africa.”

Ricky Wu of amusement machine manufacturer IGS said: “We do a lot of exporting, particularly to other parts of Asia and the Americas. We also do well in China.” Amusement manufacturer Feiloli’s Abby Lu told InterGame: “The US and Europe are our best international markets. We also already have distributors in Italy, Greece and some other countries.”

This report was first published in the August 2011 issue of InterGame magazine.