Australian electronics design solutions company Altium invests in China to accelerate the migration of users to their latest-generation design tool, and boost the teaching of unified electronics engineering in Chinese universities.
The new investments are an amnesty for users of unlicensed Altium software; and sponsored programs, special pricing, inclusive training, and electronics engineering centres of excellence in selected Chinese universities.
The Chinese government’s national policy to accelerate Chinese innovation and support the protection of intellectual property, and the estimated 300,000 users of Altium’s software in China, create a strong opportunity for Altium to grow its export revenue even further (currently 96% of Altium’s sales are from outside Australia).
“Altium believes China can become a worldwide electronics design power house, in consumer and industrial electronics,” said Emma Lo Russo, Altium’s President and Chief Operating Officer. “The Chinese government’s national commitment to move from ‘made in China’ to ‘design in China’ supports innovation from universities through to business. And China’s electronics designers will turn to next-generation electronics design tools that allow innovation to become reality.
“Altium has a huge platform on which to build: 73% of Chinese engineers, and 80% of China’s electronics engineering students, use Altium solutions. This provides an enormous opportunity to migrate large numbers of engineers to licensed versions of Altium’s next-generation unified electronics design solution.”
The company believes it can convert a conservative 20% of these users, with the potential to translate into tens of millions of dollars in export sales.