BEIJING, June 7-- SigmaTel Inc, one of the world's leading analogue intensive, mixed-signal integrated circuit suppliers, has opened its first office in the Chinese mainland as part of a bid to tap the bonanza in China's gigantic consumer electronics market.

President and CEO Ron Edgerton opened the office yesterday, in Shenzhen.

Headquartered in the United States, SigmaTel has recently been named among the 25 Breakout Companies of the year by FORTUNE Magazine for its strong financial performance and healthily growing market.

SigmaTel is a world-leading supplier of single-chip solutions for MP3 players for decoding digital audio tracks, managing battery power, controlling display and communicating with a flash memory chip or a very small hard disk drive.

The global MP3 player market has been burgeoning in the past couple of years and the time is now right for SigmaTel to set up an office here, Edgerton said.

"Shenzhen, and the Pearl River Delta region, is a mainland hotbed for semiconductor and consumer electronics manufacturing. Many of our customers are here," he said.

"That explains why we have opened our first office in the mainland here."

He said the new office will make it possible for SigmaTel to get closer to its growing number of customers in China and offer them better technical support.

At the present stage, the firm serves more than 200 customers in China, most of whom are global brands including the local brand Lenova, A-Max, Creative, Samsung, Thomson/RCA, Matsunichi, Rio, Gateway, Fujitsu, Sony and Toshiba.

The Shenzhen office, which will be upgraded into a branch of SigmaTel Inc late this year, will become the firm's headquarters in the mainland.

He said SigmaTel plans to set up another two offices in Beijing and Shanghai within the year.

Edgerton said the Asia Pacific region, and China in particular, is a very important market for SigmaTel and is the focus of the firm's continued growth.

The region is home to 95 per cent of the firm's customers, and a third of the firm's workforce will be located in the region by 2006.

Market research firm iSuppli Corp, based in the United States, says China's consumer electronics manufacturing revenue is expected to reach US$58.7 billion this year, up 9.3 per cent from US$53.7 billion in 2004.

(Source: China Daily)