With more than 1,000 employees in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing, Broadcom, one of the largest semiconductor solution providers for wired and wireless communications in the US, is working closely with Huawei and ZTE to go after the China market and cash in on the emerging global opportunity.

Scott McGregor, president and CEO of Broadcom, said that out of Broadcom's $8 billion in revenue in 2013 - counting it in terms of where the company sent products to - well over half went to greater China, including Taiwan.

"China is a very important market for Broadcom since many of our large customers such as Huawei and ZTE are based there," he said. "We are increasing our efforts in China in terms of engineering our technology in the last few years."

Broadcom is now creating some China-specific products in the areas of set top boxes and networking.

"We are in the number one position and have the number one product in China when it comes to Bluetooth, wireless connectivity and Internet, we have a very strong position in set top boxes, broadband connection, DSL and satellite connections, and we are number one in switches, so we are very much the leader in all of those markets in China," he said.

Yang Zhirong, home device product line president of Huawei, commented at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday that Huawei and Broadcom have been working closely for many years to deliver broadband products to consumers in China.

"Broadcom makes products with cutting-edge technologies, which is important to be competitive in today's market. Our cooperation makes it a win-win," said Yang.

According to McGregor, industry shipments of connected wearable devices are expected to increase by more than 550 percent from 2011 to 2016, which represents a substantial opportunity for Broadcom.

Having three children himself, McGregor said it's hard to say which child is the best at identifying the hottest product on the market - broadband connectivity, wireless or mobile.

"We work closely with partners in China who provide the broadband rollout for internet to the home for people in China, which is an important part of set top box modem and DSL," he said. "We also work with a number of Chinese companies to provide handsets in China, which is an important part of our business there."

McGregor also points out that 99.98 percent of the world already uses Broadcom's switches and infrastructures through Broadcom chips.

A big trend he predicts is the growth of automotive broadband connectivity in China.

"Today a car doesn't have much technology in it and networking technology is something we are working on today and you will see the cars increasingly connected," McGregor explained.

kellyzhang@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 01/08/2014 page2)