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(Bloomberg) — Computer makers including Apple Inc. and Dell Inc. have turned to Delta Electronics Inc. to power their PCs for the past decade. Now, the supplier is moving into electric vehicles and factory robots. “It’s a natural evolution,” Yancey Hai, chairman of the Taipei-based company, said of the release last year of its first robot. “We make most of the components already.” While Delta’s biggest revenue contributor is the humble business of supplying to desktop and notebook PC makers, the company has 20 years of research in motors and sensors to call upon. A projected decline in demand for computers is forcing Delta to invest more in robotics and tap into a vehicle-charging market estimated to reach $2.9 billion. “Adopting this strategy is a good thing when you consider that the PC and notebook business is stagnating,” said Darryl Cheng, an analyst at SinoPac Financial Holdings Co. in Taipei. “Yet those industries take a long time for a company to penetrate into.” From 60 percent last year, Delta expects to cut the sales contribution from its Power Electronics division — which includes power converters for computers, their related components and cooling fans — to 50 percent by 2020, Hai said.
With a smaller division making motors, sensors and control systems for industrial automation, Delta already offers 75 percent of the parts that go into robots.

Robotics Push

A $10,000 industrial robot the company unveiled last year is leading Delta’s latest push into factory automation. The company uses the robots in its own factories and expects to offer them at competitive prices relative to Japanese rivals, Hai said in an interview Wednesday. “The technology is driven by the need,” he said of the recent push into factory automation. “China is now the largest worldwide user of robots.” Delta’s move from components and control systems to completed robots will help drive sales from that business to as much as $100 million by 2020 after starting last year, he said. Delta reported 2014 revenue of NT$190.6 billion ($6 billion).
Another Delta unit supplies General Motors Co. and Tesla Motors Inc. with electric motors, onboard battery chargers and power converters. Vehicle-charging service revenue will jump 18-fold to $2.9 billion by 2023, Navigant Research estimates. While its electric vehicle products only brought in about $57 million in sales last year, a deal announced this month to supply charging stations to a Chinese partner will help that business’s sales climb as much as 30 percent this year.
“China’s electric vehicle charging market is tough to break into,” said Steve Man, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence in Hong Kong. “Yet it’s also the market with the largest global potential.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Culpan in Taipei at tculpan1@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Tighe at mtighe4@bloomberg.net Dave McCombs, Suresh Seshadri