HALMA Group (www.halma.com), a global leader in environmental, medical and safety devices, launched AVIRE (Chairman Nigel Trodd), a subsidiary specializing in the elevator industry, on May 9 to launch an aggressive marketing strategy in the Asia-Pacific region.

Founded in 1895, the HALMA Group is a recognized leader in Process Safety, Infrastructure Safety, Medical, and Environmental & Analytics, with revenues of €590 million last year and a market capitalization of more than €1.6 billion. The company is headquartered in Amersham, near London, UK, and employs more than 4,000 people.

The new AVIRE company was launched as a unified brand to provide safety and communication products for the elevator industry, with three companies: LCD display solutions company E-Motive, elevator door safety specialist TL Jones, and Memco. Currently, the company has four manufacturing plants in the Czech Republic, India, China, and Indonesia, and plans to pursue a full-scale elevator parts business through 14 bases around the world.

HALMA Group's move is not unrelated to the rapidly growing elevator market in China and Southeast Asia. Ryuichi Matsumoto, general manager of sales for AVIRE Asia-Pacific, told this newspaper, "While the European and American markets are slowing down, China is a giant market, accounting for 60 percent of the global elevator market." "We will accompany China's acceleration through thorough preparations in all fields, including R&D, manufacturing, technology, sales, and support," he said.

AVIRE will supply a number of products to the global elevator market, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, through the three companies, including displays, touch operating panels, light curtains, emergency call devices, and LED lighting.

In particular, Memco (www.memco.com), the largest of the three companies, produces and sells competitive light curtains such as Panachrome, Pana40 Plus series, and E-series, emergency call devices, and LED lighting, and is the largest light curtain company in the world, with more than 2 million light curtain products currently installed in landmark buildings.

In particular, the 'Panachrome' model, which can be applied to infrared beam curtains and light-emitting diodes with a single detector, and the 'E-Series' product, which was newly launched in 2011, have received steady attention in the elevator door safety device market. "The E-Series is a model that can replace the Elite 618 series, which has a timeout function to save energy, a tone function for the visually impaired, and a diagnostic LED to diagnose the status of the light curtain," said Kim Moon-tae, CEO of Hanshin Hi-Tech, Memco's sales agent in Korea. "In particular, the robust design of the lens protects the light curtain from water and dust to extend the life of the device, and the simple and sensible product design is also competitive."

Memco's top-of-the-line Panachrome light curtain, with 154 crossed beams, provides visual safety for users and is used in hospitals, airports, train stations, commercial buildings, senior care facilities and shopping centers.  

LED lighting, which is effective in reducing costs compared to incandescent or fluorescent lamps, is also equipped with lamps that exceed the lux level required by the international standard inspection standard (EN) to respond to customized needs.

In addition, TL Jones, which produces and sells light curtains in the mid-to-low price range, is expanding its sales bases in Australia and Asia, and E-Motive, which recently introduced new models of 'C1/C2 display' along with 'K Class' products, is actively targeting the Asia-Pacific region, centering on the Chinese market.

According to AVIRE officials, the company aims to achieve sales growth of about 10% annually based on the Asia-Pacific market by expanding the applicable market through steady new product launches. In addition, the company is looking forward to becoming a customer-centered, technology-driven company that can continue to provide innovative investments and new solutions, using the plan to build 36 million affordable housing units announced by the Chinese government in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) as a future growth engine.