NXP Semiconductors hits milestone in Beijing

NXP Semiconductors, a Philips spin-off, announced that its Beijing sound solutions factory has produced its one-billionth speaker for mobile phones, reinforcing the firm's leading position as a manufacturer of high-quality speakers and receivers worldwide.

The Beijing site, which serves as NXP's sound solution Asia competence center, was established in 2001 to focus on developing highly-customized products to be quickly brought to the market.

The plant has grown from a one-product operation with 50 people to a multi-product manufacturing organization with more than 600 employees.

"NXP is a leader in the mobile speaker market with close to 3 billion sound speaker units shipped worldwide. The one-billionth speaker milestone from Beijing demonstrates the value of having a successful and specialized manufacturing operation in China," said Franz Obenaus, NXP's sound solutions business line's chief operating officer (COO) and senior director.

"We provide our customers with unique manufacturing expertise that includes fully automated production lines, enabling NXP to quickly respond to customer needs and easily adapt to demand fluctuations so that products can be available in the fastest time to market," the COO said.

Currently, 15 percent of the products made in the Beijing factory are directly exported overseas, while 70 percent are sourced to mobile phone manufacturers based in China and then exported. Its clients include Nokia and Lenovo.

Nearly 40 percent of the mobile phones can play music, and high profile music phones coming to market will increase demand for high performing mini sound systems.

"The mobile phone sector is still fast growing. In the past, each phone had only one speaker, but it is the trend for phones to have three or more such components," Obenaus said.

Nearly one in three phones sold currently incorporate NXP speakers, he said.