An insight into the Russian market

The Russian Federation, with a land mass nearly as large as the United States and Canada combined and extending over much of northern Eurasia (Asia and Europe), is the largest country in the world. It has significant mineral and energy resources as well as 10 % of the world’s copper reserves and it is the world’s ninth largest silver producer. Russia’s electronics manufacturing industry is demographically spread over five key regions:

Russian electronics manufacturers serve a variety of industry sectors, the most prevalent being military, security systems and access control systems, civil and military telecommunications, automotive electronics, computer engineering, controllers, medical apparatus and consumer electronics. The Russian electronic industry also produces a wide range of electronic components, such as ICs, semiconductors, optoelectronics, electro vacuum devices and radio components.

Today there are in excess of 2,000 electronic manufacturers in Russia. A significant number of these are state owned producers of military equipment. Approximately 50 % of non-military enterprises are also state owned; the remainders are privately held companies. One such giant of the electronic industry is the holding company Incotex in Moscow. The holding company combines a group of companies, focused on development, production and servicing of various electronic products. The holding’s history started from the establishment of Incotex Ltd. in 1992 for development and production of electronic cash registers (ECR) under the brand name Mercury.

Over 13 years, Incotex has become a powerful and multi-discipline holding – a leader in ECR development and production in Russia. Each product is an original design, which distinguishes it from similar products by other companies. They also modify products according to customers’ request, as necessary. The holding company has over 2,000 certified service centers in Russia and CIS countries. The company deals directly with world leading companies, such as Atmel, Microchip, Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Rohm, etc. as well as many companies from Taiwan, Hong-Kong, Singapore and Korea. Incotex exports products to more than ten countries and this number will be increased soon. In March 2004 the company quality management system was certified on conformity to requirements of standards GOST R ISO 9001:2000, DIN EN ISO 9001:2000 and obtained national certificate in GOST R system and international certificate of world trustworthy certification body TUV-CERT.

Incotex is the largest Russian manufacturer both by quantity of SMT-lines and number of machines. After a first experience with an entry level SMT placement system, the manufacturer needed to drastically expand their production capacity and purchased the first Juki machines in the beginning of 2001. The modular concept and the high reliability of the machines were the key factors for the holding company to start a partnership with Juki. Today there are eight SMT-lines with a total of 15 Juki machines installed over two plants. All this equipment was supplied to Incotex by the official distributor of Juki in Russia – Sovtest ATE, partner since the year 2000.

Currently, Incotex is expanding its activities towards Europe with the recent opening of a new plant in Sofia, Bulgaria. The start of the SMT production is planned by the beginning of the second quarter in 2008. For this new plant, the manufacturer decided again for Juki and the first two lines, consisting of an FX1R and a KE2080, will be installed soon. The sales and technical support is granted by PB-Technik Europe EOOD, official Juki distributor in Bulgaria.

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