Site layout faster than planned

03/2024 - Retour à l'aperçu

Cherry sites in Auerbach and Zhuhai to become global innovation cen-ters with engineering expertise.

Munich, 13 March 2024 – Cherry SE is completing the expansion of the company's own sites in Auerbach and Zhuhai into global innovation centers with engineering expertise ahead of schedule. Production with a focus on the successful ULP switches and MX switch generation 2 will start in the first half of 2024 and not in the second half of 2024 as initially expected. In this way, Cherry SE is strengthening its international competitiveness in the long term, increasing profitability in the keyboard switch business and serving the markets quickly, efficiently and precisely.

"Last year in November we adopted the comprehensive package of measures for the consistent realignment of the over-the-counter business. The fact that the expansion of the two sites in Auerbach and Zhuhai is now being completed earlier than expected shows the efficiency and determination with which Udo Streller's team is working on our overall strategy change," comments Oliver Kaltner, CEO of Cherry SE.

"With our innovation centers in Auerbach and Zhuhai, we are strengthening innovation, market-driven pricing, competitiveness, profitability and our (OEM) sales approach – an important milestone on our way there," explains Dr. Udo Streller, COO of Cherry SE. "Our clear goal is to regain our relevance in the over-the-counter business. Thanks to market-compliant technology and price points for the MX2 and ULP switch generations, we are returning to significant sales growth," Dr. Udo Streller continues.

With the expansion of the company's locations, the innovation centers in the operational service areas of development, production and logistics will be adapted to current customer requirements and networked even more closely and efficiently with each other. In addition, the regional production of the switches in various countries saves considerable logistics costs, among other things, as the production of the OEM partners can also be served and supplied better and more efficiently on site.

In the future, the innovation center at the Zhuhai site will focus more on the development and production of office and gaming hardware for the international market as well as specifically for the Chinese and other Asian markets. In addition, the production site there focuses on product innovations and the development of engineering competence for innovative gaming products with local development teams and start-ups in China. Since 2019, China has demonstrably developed into the production country for qualitative switches in the entry-level and volume market. Over the years, Cherry has built up a stable base with a high-performance team in China.

The Auerbach site in the Upper Palatinate focuses on high-quality switch production and innovation development. The company produces the next generation of MX2 switches, the new gold standard for mechanical switches, for use in its own products, as well as the ultra-slim ULP switches for the international market. In addition, the innovation developments for the two product lines ULP and MX are driven and controlled from here. To this end, Cherry SE has the best engineers and experts at its disposal at its Auerbach site in the spirit of "German Engineering", who ensure unique product development with their many years of experience and excellent innovation know-how.   

"The switch variants localized in China will enable us to realize additional sales potential while at the same time significantly reducing manufacturing costs. In addition, with ULP and MX2, we are meeting the expectations of our global OEM customers in terms of innovation, pricing and volume," explains Oliver Kaltner, CEO of Cherry SE. "In this way, we are underpinning our claim to market relevance, innovation leadership, product quality, volume solutions of all sizes, pricing expertise and profitability," says Oliver Kaltner.