Despite Ukraine’s low wages, the nation – just like many more affluent ones in the West – outsources hardware production to China. The most famous ones – Petcube, LaMetric and iblazr – with almost $800,000 collectively raised on Kickstarter, all have their production set up in China’s Shenzhen.
LaMetric
Nazar Bilous, chief executive officer at LaMetric, which makes devices that go with one’s smartphone and display some of its content, says he found all the production prerequisites he needed in China – not in Ukraine.
Ukrainian tech production capacities simply can’t meet all the criteria, Bilous said. LaMetric found Ukrainian company Obreey Products as a partner. It specializes in research and development of hardware products and helped to find the Chinese assembly plant. Crucially, their partner Obreey Products also had employees who speak Chinese; LaMetric did not. They hope to start shipping in spring.
iblazr
The team of iblazr, a portable flash for iOS, Android devices and Windows phone, has also settled on a factory in Shenzhen. They didn’t find a Ukrainian producer able to meet their requirements either. Besides, making products in China is simply cheaper.
“Our factory is in between small and middle size,” Vlad Tislenko, chief executive officer and founder at iblazr, says.
Right after the fundraising campaign launched on Kickstarter in August 2013, the team started looking for the factory. “We were receiving tons of offers from investors, producers, logistics and distribution companies worldwide. This is a usual thing when your product gets successful on Kickstarter,” Tislenko says.
At that time ARTKB, Ukrainian company that helps to develop innovative hardware products, became iblazr’s partner and helped to choose the factory in China.
“Factory’s management must have very good English. We got lucky as our Chinese partners could understand us at a glance,” Tislenko says. “I don’t think we would ever get somewhere with explaining extremely complex aspects of the device production on gestures.”
Another important thing is factory’s portfolio. “It was important for us to have a producer with a previous experience in working with aluminum and creating smartphone accessories,” Tislenko explains. The quality of the product depends on the company that controls production, he goes on.
“We work with Chinese producers for almost 10 years. The database has been renewed couple of times already. First contacts we got were collected after visiting exhibitions, factories and meeting with their executives,” says Oleksandr Nesterenko, head of ARTKB.
Defects always happen, he adds. The defect rate may start with 0.5 percent.
Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by AVentures Capital, Ciklum, FISON and SoftServe.
