Monday, January 13, 2014: Established in 2008, Singapore-based RF Instruments Pte Ltd, has been manufacturing test equipment for radio frequency space and other applications, for over 20 years. In 2008, it brought the Planar VNA line to Asia. Its US operations began in 2011 with the name Copper Mountain Technologies and all its vector network analyser (VNA) products were rebranded under this name. In an interview with Electronics Bazaar Bureau, Arkady Raynes, director, RF Instruments Pte Ltd, talks about the importance of the Indian market and his firm’s business plans for India.
EB: Have you ever done business in India before? Why is the Indian market important for you?
We have been doing business in India since 2011. India is a big technology market and hence there are good chances for us to grow.
EB: What are your business plans in India?
India, as I said, is an important market for us, and we are looking to expand our business here. In India, we operate through our distributors, and are open to expanding our distributor network. Currently, we reach out to our customers not only through our distributors, but also by participating in exhibitions. We provide after-sales support through our distributors or directly to the customers from our Singapore office.
EB: Who do you want to connect with in India—trade channel partners (importers, distributors, etc), systems integrators or large customers?
We are interested in all such inquiries. Copper Mountain Technologies has worked with many channel partners successfully, and we are certainly interested in customers of all sizes. Systems integrators are also well served by our equipment because their overall system can retain a lower cost. We would like to discuss relationships with all these groups.
EB: What are the challenges you have experienced or foresee while doing business in India?
The VNA market is dominated by several well-known and highly respected brands. Our biggest challenge is overcoming our customers’ brand loyalty to those manufacturers. However, being less than one-half of the price, dimensions, and weight of competing products—accompanied by equal or better performance—our VNAs sell themselves once engineers get a chance to use them.
EB: Can you share some details about the financial figures of your firm?
Although we cannot share the turnover figures, our growth has been stable in the last few years and our sales are doubling every year.
EB: Which are the top five nations you export to?
We export to USA, Canada, China, Taiwan and India.
EB: With so many competing options from China, Taiwan and other nations, what is the unique selling proposition of your products that would attract partners and customers in India?
Finding high-performance yet low-cost test equipment is a unique challenge for engineering firms, worldwide. We do not sacrifice quality for price, which means we can offer better performance and reliability that customers cannot necessarily find in the markets you mentioned.
EB: Can you summarise the product range and the services offered by your company?
We manufacture and distribute advanced microwave and RF test equipment, in particular, VNAs. Our unique PC-driven VNAs deliver highly accurate measurements at half the cost of traditional VNAs. Leveraging breakthrough advances in RF technology, our analysers provide high measurement accuracy, a wide dynamic range, a familiar UI (user interface) and a broad variety of standard features.
EB: What are the recent achievements or developments that you would like to highlight to prospective partners and customers in India?
The biggest benefit of the virtual VNA is that users can take advantage of the processing power, bigger display, and more reliable performance of an external PC, while simplifying the maintenance of the analyser. Virtual VNAs are flexible. They can be easily adapted to multiple users and are well-suited for lab, production, field, and secure testing environments. Besides, they are significantly less expensive!
EB: Which products or services do you expect to sell more of in India?
VNAs, as they are complex pieces of equipment that many firms in India can appreciate, due to the continuing growth of the industrial and engineering sectors. Their affordable price is also a good fit for businesses that would like to extend the capabilities of their production teams. Among the few manufacturers of VNAs in the world, Copper Mountain Technologies best serves small and medium companies because of our great price-performance ratio.
Electronics Bazaar, South Asia’s No.1 Electronics B2B magazine
