Our Advantages

Our Product Advantage

We design, manufacture, and market nearly 500,000 products for more than 200,000 customer locations in industries ranging from automotive, appliance, and aerospace and defense to telecommunications, computers, and consumer electronics. We bring a performance advantage to every technology, product and service we provide, including connector systems, relays, fiber optics, circuit protection devices, wire and cable, touch screens, heat shrink tubing, racks and panels, network interface devices, undersea telecommunication systems and land mobile radios and networks. We are continually honing our technological edge with the goal of delivering the best products – with the highest quality – every time.

Our Technology Advantage

We invest more than four percent of the company’s sales revenue on research, development and engineering annually – in 2008 alone our investment was US$640 million. These efforts are supported by nearly 8,000 engineers and 13 global design centers, working closely with our customers to develop applications-specific, highly engineered products and systems to satisfy customers’ needs. We apply for more than 750 patents annually and hold more than 16,000 patents and patent applications in total. Our innovation, early design involvement and materials expertise give customers a competitive advantage by delivering new functionality, and by helping them to bring better performance to existing products, deliver new products to market faster, and realize greater efficiencies in their manufacturing processes.

Our Global Advantage

We have an established manufacturing presence in over 25 countries, we operate in approximately 50 countries, and we serve customers in more than 150 countries. Our global coverage positions us near our customers and allows us to assist them in consolidating their supply base and lowering their production costs. In addition, our global account management programs allow us to maintain close working relationships with the key customers in the markets we serve. With sales of US$14.8 billion in fiscal 2008, we are significantly larger than many of our competitors – giving us scale and reach that generate direct dividends for our customers everywhere.

Our Employee Advantage

We have approximately 96,000 dedicated employees who are based throughout the world, with approximately 36,000 employees in China alone. By maximizing the commitment of our nearly 8,000 engineers, and the reach of our 5,000-plus member sales force serving customers in more than 150 countries, we can collaborate with customers to provide highly engineered products and innovative solutions to meet their needs. Our diverse and capable management team, with an average of more than 20 years of electronics industry experience, is equally dedicated to creating and sustaining those powerful customer alliances – and to earning their business every day.