Qmax enters US market

Chennai: City based automated test equipments manufacturer, Qmax Test Equipments Pvt Ltd, is entering the American market through a co-branding deal with Wayne Kerr Electronics, USA.

Announcing the deal, director-Technical, S R Sabapathi said, "As per the agreement signed with Wayne Kerr, our automated test equipments will be sold under Wayne Kerr Qmax brand. This would help us avoid undergoing various regulatory procedures as the American company has already got such clearances."

He also said that the shipment to US in the first year of the deal is expected to be around $2 million. "Production capacity is not a constraint for us," he added.

Meanwhile Qmax plans to increase its headcount by 100 engineers to 190 this year. According to Sabapathi, the setting up of a couple of semi conductor and mobile phone manufacturing units in India has thrown up a great opportunity. Qmax has tied up with Comprion, Germany, for testing mobile phones.

Broadly speaking, automated test equipments are basically used in two sectors — manufacturers of printed circuit boards (PCB)/equipments with PCBs and users/repairers of those equipments.

The Rs25 crore turnover group Qmax caters mainly to the repair and recovery segment. According to V Vijayakumar, DGM-Marketing, the group — Qmax Test Equipments and Qmax Technologies Pte.Ltd, Singapore - holds 70 per cent market share in that segment in the Asia Pacific region.

The group is logging an annual growth of 30 per cent.

According to Vijaykumar, Qmax also has the capability to test Russian PCBs. "The Russian PCBs are entirely different from what the western world makes," he said.