The Chinese company Shanghai Jiwu Technology Corporation has recently established a European office in the Netherlands to facilitate the growth of its European business. Since being established in 2015 the company has developed eight models of gyroscopic stabilisers for use in leisure and commercial boats from under 5 tonnes up to 500 tonnes.
IBI’s China correspondent Cynthia Tan talks to marketing director Xin Chen about the company’s international progress, its forthcoming plans and how it has managed to deal with the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Q. How has the business been going since the Spring Festival of 2020 (COVID-19)? Has the overseas business been affected by COVID-19?
Jiwu has recently established a European office in the Netherlands near Rotterdam. This is a strategic location very close to Europe’s largest port with a high concentration of maritime activities and businesses with an international focus. The office is able to cover sales all over Europe and the outlook is looking good.
Q. What are the major markets of the company? Which of them are most affected by the COVID-19? And which are less affected?
Jiwu gyro stabilizers were launched in China in 2015 and over 200 units have been installed to date. However, it was not until 2018 in Japan that we started our oversea sales, followed by Europe in 2019. Despite some initial inconveniences, the Covid-19 crisis didn’t have too much impact on Jiwu’s international sales. Instead we have seen a large increase of new enquiries since the spring of 2020.
Q. How is your current production capacity different from the same period last year? Is production reduced or increased?
Expansion and updates to our factory were finished this spring including increasing the number of new test beds and upgrading current ones in order to satisfy the significant increased demand and those larger models. The actual output in the first half of this year has increased by 1.5 times compared with the entire year of last year, and the output in 2020 is expected to increase by 4-5 times compared with 2019.
Q. What new products has the company launched or planned to launch this year?
At the end of 2019, we launched JW-150, our solution for boats of under 500 tons. Keeping the same design strategy with other JIWU models, JW-150 adopts the strategy of vacuum sealing and active control to minimize its weight and dimensions. The first JW-150 has already been sold and installed on a 50m high-speed passenger ferry.
In 2020, we launched JW-50 and JW-80. The first JW-80 has been ordered and is expected to be installed on a CTV in spring of 2021, while the first JW-50 to be installed on a 30m patrol boat in Autumn of 2021.
Q. What changes has the company made to respond to the epidemic? E.g., new marketing models or marketing methods?
As most of the shows and other offline activities have been canceled this year due to the covid crisis, we have stepped up our online marketing activities. The new website www.gyro-stabilizer.eu has been launched earlier this year, to assist with communicating our European marketing activities such the special pricing offer we are making for our JW-20 model (for boats of under 80 tons) during September and October.
Q. What are your expectations and development goals regarding the international gyro stabilizer market?
The market now has a clear understanding and acceptance of marine gyrostabilizers particularly for small and middle size models. Larger size models still have significant potential, as a result we have launched the JW-50, JW-80 and JW-150 models to better serve the middle to large boat segment. The introduction of larger models doesn’t mean that we will not also update the smaller and middle sized models. Jiwu will be upgrading these models to be more installation and user-friendly.
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