BenQ-Siemens
 |
|
| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Communications |
| Founded | 7 June 2005 |
| Defunct | 30 January 2007 |
| Headquarters | Taoyuan, Taiwan |
|
Key people
|
Clemens Joos, CEO; Jerry Wang, EVP and CMO; Alex Liou, Head of Corporate Finance; Irwin Chen, Member of the Board; |
| Products | Mobile phones |
|
Number of employees
|
~3,000 |
| Parent | BenQ Corporation |
| Website | www.benqmobile.com |
BenQ-Siemens was the mobile communications subsidiary of Taiwanese BenQ Corp. The division was formed out of BenQ's acquisition of the then struggling Siemens Mobile group in 2005. The stated goal of the company was to pull together BenQ's lifestyle experience, their design team and Siemens' engineering capabilities to create a new leader in the mobile communications arena. The newly formed company won the most iF product design awards in 2006 and also won many design awards in Germany's red dot competition.
It filed for bankruptcy in a Munich court in October 2006. This sparked a debate in Germany over whether BenQ only acquired the Siemens mobile division for all its patents and intellectual property, and that it did not intend to continue manufacturing mobile phones in Germany. BenQ has stated that it intends to continue its mobile business from Asia.
On 30 January 2007 the BenQ Mobile factory in Kamp-Lintfort closed, after no suitable investors for the German division had been found. Representatives of the labour union IG Metall bid farewell to the last 165 workers with flowers.
However, after the company closed down, its parent company, BenQ, launched five new phones under the BenQ-Siemens brand during 2007. These include the A53 (Taiwan only), E52, C31, C32 and SF71. This continued the lifespan of the BenQ-Siemens brand.
BenQ resumed production of smartphones under its own brand in 2013.
BenQ currently manufactures mobile phones in China (Shanghai). A sale of the Brazilian facilities (Manaus) is pending. It also has R&D facilities in Taiwan (Taipei) and China (Suzhou).
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Wikipedia