3. COMPANY REPORT Receiver Manufacturer AMIKO, Hungary
How a New
Receiver Brand ë Budapest
Comes Into Being
In the last issue of TELE-satellite we Hungary’s capital Budapest,
introduced the first Dual Boot receiv- AMIKO has its home. It con-
er from AMIKO: the user can choose sists of an administration build-
which operating software to use in his ing and an attached warehouse.
receiver. This is a remarkable innova- AMIKO ships its receivers from here
tion in that it separates the hardware to countries in central Europe. AMIKO
(the receiver itself) from the software moved into this brand new building
(used to operate the receiver). only at the end of 2010; before that to include customers in neighboring
AMIKO was located in downtown Bu- countries where you’ll also find the re-
But there’s more: Spark was put into dapest. mainder of AMIKO’s employees: 17 in
service for the first time with any re- the Czech sales office, eight in Roma-
ceiver. This not only provides for au- AMIKO’s founders have known each nia, four in Serbia as well as six more
tomatic receiver updates but it also other for quite some time: “We met in local sales offices in Hungary. And
allows the manufacturer to directly back in 1995”, remembers Financial let’s not forget the employees in the
communicate with the end user. The Manager Zsolt Harangi. They were receiver production line. Since produc-
applications for this new technology both involved in the satellite industry tion is not continuous, the number of
appear to be numerous; it’s really not with different companies. “Back then employees varies between 20 and 40.
known as yet how far reaching this can it was all still analog technology”, re-
be. calls József Zsimán. Then the digital When the business first started, the
age began and at some point the two two partners focused on being a satel-
But who’s behind AMIKO? In a newly of them felt the time was right to take lite wholesaler. They distributed digital
developed industrial zone northeast of things into their own hands. receivers from a variety of manufac-
turers as well as everything else an
“We started with four employees”, installer needs: LNBs, dishes, multi-
explains József Zsimán. Today there switches and cable. This business still
are 14 employees in their Budapest makes up a part of their sales today.
office. Their sales have expanded “In 2010 50% of our sales were whole-
■ The building in the foreground
contains the offices for sales,
administration, R&D and service. Their
products are shipped from the attached
warehouse. The company is ISO
certified by TÜV.
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1
4. sale with the other 50% consisting of József Zsimán explains, “In 2010 we line in Budapest. “We have achieved
our own receiver brands”, explains Fi- founded two brand names: AMIKO for excellent quality in our production”, he
nancial Manager Zsolt Harangi. retail and SYNAPS for operators.” SYN- continues, “The components from FU-
APS offers DVB-C and DVB-T receivers LAN are already of the highest quality
For 2011 though the picture looks for cable and other programming pro- and our own quality assurance team
quite different: “We expect for the cur- viders. AMIKO is a brand name for the checks it all once again.”
rent year that our receiver brands will retail market. “We are working very
make up 70% of our sales while our close together with FULAN in China. Even more important with having
wholesale business will drop to 30%”, They provide us with most of our re- your own production line and your own
comments Zsolt Harangi. ceiver components”, explains Market- receiver brand is having the customer
ing Manager József Zsimán. The re- rely on you. In their many years of
The AMIKO brand name is very new. ceivers are assembled on a production experience the two owners have seen
AMIKO Company Details
1 Receiver Manufacturer, Hungary www.amikostb.com
Engineers in Research & Development | Total Number of Employees
▼ ▼
0................................ 50 ................................ 100
Average Turnover (Previous, This, Next Year Estimates)
▼
0................................ 10 ...................20 Mio €uro
Production Certificates
ISO, RoHS, DVB
Production Categories
own brands AMIKO, SYNAPS - cooperation with FULAN
Main Products
Receiver for DVB-S/S2, DVB-T/MPEG-4, DVB-C, award winning
product Dual Boot Linux receiver for DVB-S/S2 and DVB-T
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1107/eng/amiko.pdf
it all before: suppliers shifted their
production elsewhere and customers
would contact the dealer and complain
why they can’t get any spare parts or
service anymore. “This can’t happen
with our products”, comments József
Zsimán, “We have a fully stocked spare
parts warehouse from which we can
deliver any possible component for ev-
ery receiver to our customers. We’ll be
able to do this for years to come.” If you
control your own production line, you
can make statements like that. But this
was only one of the reasons why AMIKO
decided to produce their own products.
2 By sheer coincidence, József Zsimán
received a telephone call at that very
moment in our interview: the AMIKO
technicians found a software bug in
the newest version and immediately
forwarded this information to the com-
ponent provider FULAN in China. It’s
2PM in Budapest and within minutes
an answer came from China: “We’re
working on it.” József Zsimán looks up
from his mobile telephone: “This is ex-
actly what makes our cooperation with
FULAN so perfect: immediate reac-
tion to a problem despite the six-hour
time difference with China!” AMIKO
and FULAN are two companies that
are perfect for each other; energetic
production and distribution here with
component manufacturing there.
1. Marketing Manager of AMIKO is
József Zsimán.
2. Zsolt Harangi is happy with the
sales figures. He is AMIKO’s Financial
Manager.
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5. József Zsimán sees it all realisti-
cally: “We find ourselves in stiff com-
3
petition with other providers but over
the long term success will only be for
those who provide the best products
and offer the best service.” According
to József Zsimán, the decision on what
receiver the customer uses doesn’t
rest with the customer but rather with
the installer or dealer: just from using
the receivers themselves, installers
and dealers can recommend a specific
brand that provides the best service. It
doesn’t help the situation if a customer
comes back with complaints after only
a short time.
József Zsimán says that the accura-
cy of his statements is proven simply
by the consistent, short-term growth
of his young company AMIKO.
This increase is above all the result
of the speedy development of AMIKO
receiver sales. The geographical dis-
tribution of these sales is especially
interesting. Oddly enough the home
market in Hungary is not the biggest;
in fact, at about 20%, The Czech Re- 4
public, Slovakia and Romania are at
the top with Hungary in fourth place at
about 15%.
The fact that AMIKO is so well placed
in these countries is due in large part
to their active business policy: “We
have sales offices in The Czech Repub-
lic, Romania, Serbia and even here in
Hungary”, explains József Zsimán why
sales are so good in these countries.
In other central European countries
AMIKO has very tight relationships
with wholesalers. József Zsimán lists
them: “This includes Bulgaria, Croa-
tia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Slovakia,
Greece, Slovenia as well as the three
Baltic states.” And that’s not all: “In
2011 we’ll be begin distribution in the
Ukraine with a local dealer there and
in 2012 we plan to go into Albania.”
AMIKO is continuously in expansion
mode.
But we weren’t only interested in
how AMIKO is spread out geographi-
cally; we also wanted to know what
they have planned for their receivers.
This was a question that József Zsimán
was only too happy to answer: “In the
3. Márton Lengyel is Sales Manager
and runs a team of 6 Sales
Representatives.
4. Beata Karsai is responsible for
sales and logistics.
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6. 1
third quarter the AMIKO ALIEN.2 will
appear with an even more powerful
chipset. Aside from that, we are al-
2
ways expanding our receiver software
with new features.”
József Zsimán highlights these fea-
tures for us that should appear later
this year: “Web browser, WiFi, Flash
Support, NTFS, USB Hub and Messag-
ing.” Owners of AMIKO ALIEN receivers
should be happy; these new features
will appear on their own in their receiv-
ers thanks to the automatic software
update feature.
Can we expect to see any other sur-
prises from AMIKO? József Zsimán
reveals a little from their second re-
ceiver line, SYNAPS, that are used by
cable and programming providers:
“By the end of 2011 we will also be
offering receivers with chipset pair-
ing.” In this way AMIKO can service
1. The R&D team in the well-stocked
engineering room.
2. An AMIKO technician checking for
problems. Once a problem has been
localized, production is adjusted to
prevent the problem from reappearing.
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7. ■ The large warehouse right next to
AMIKO’s administration building.
Not only are AMIKO receivers
shipped from here, but you’ll also
find satellite components stored
here (LNBs, dishes, multiswitches,
cable) that AMIKO as a wholesaler
ships to installers and shops.
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8. programming providers that also use would be to have a separate receiver.”
this technology. comments József Zsimán.
Are the two AMIKO managers at all He is convinced that AMIKO with its
concerned that TV manufacturers will receivers and above all with its line
someday integrate receivers into their of new ALIEN receivers will carve a
products? “As soon as more functions path that will allow it to continuous-
are needed or an expanded frequency ly expand and bring with it extreme
range needs to be received, for exam- growth potential. We can only agree
ple, satellite TV, then the only solution with that!
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9. ■ The satellite dishes on AMIKO’s roof have
been installed in a very organized fashion.
Zsolt Bornemissza is the R&D team leader
and explains to us what’s to be seen here:
“Here you’ll find five 85cm antennas, each
fitted with a DiSEqC motor. There are also
two 1.25-meter dishes, one with an actuator
motor and the other fixed in place and
aligned with 36E and equipped with a circular
Ku-band LNB.”
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10. 1
2
1. A Toroidal antenna with 9 Quattro LNBs rounds out
this dream satellite antenna setup.
2.All of the satellite antenna cables find their way to
this switching cabinet. The antenna connections come
into the top half of the cabinet with all of the output
lines coming out the lower half of the cabinet going to
each work station and to the demonstration monitors.
In this way each work station and each monitor can be
supplied with an individual satellite signal: you just
have to plug into the proper bridging cable. The easy-to-
read labeling on all the connections makes it all simple
and easy to use.
Fabrication at AMIKO
1 2
1.A look in the production area: AMIKO employees assemble the
receivers here.
2. The completed receivers are individually tested before they
are packed.
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