DALLAS - Seoul, Korea's Nautilus Hyosung Inc. doesn't expect to stagger or moderate its efforts to penetrate the U.S. ATM market. In fact, company executives told distributors last week in Dallas that they plan to be very aggressive.
"Four months ago, the company's heads met to discuss how to grow North American sales," said Harry Sungyoon Nam, executive vice president of corporate development for Hyosung Corp., Nautilus Hyosung's parent.
The company's goal is to become a global leader in financial IT solutions, said Christopher Cho, senior executive vice president of Hyosung Corp. and a board member of Nautilus Hyosung.
"We now have a presence in 11 countries," Cho said, and the company has its sights set on further expansion. "But North America is the largest and the most important market to us."
Cho said the company expects by July to have shipped 90,000 self-service terminals to North America. (England-based Retail Banking Research Ltd. estimates that Nautilus Hyosung has about 75,000 terminals on the ground now in North America.)
Despite some touchy weather and sporadic flight delays and cancellations, about 175 ATM distributors and Nautilus Hyosung partners from about 95 U.S. companies made their way down to Dallas to celebrate the grand opening of Nautilus Hyosung USA's headquarters.
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| Photograph by Tracy Kitten Nautilus Hyosung USA is based in Coppell, Texas, just outside Dallas. The company celebrated its grand opening last week. |
The new 29,000-square-foot facility, located in Coppell, Texas, just outside Dallas, is expected to reach full capacity over the course of the next several months. About 9,000 square feet has been dedicated for office space; the remaining 20,000 square feet is consumed by the warehouse, from where the company expects to ship some 1,000 ATMs per month.
Nautilus Hyosung USA has 20 employees. But that number is soon expected to hit 35, with between three and four employees dedicated to on-site production upgrades and modifications. By the end of July, all North American inventories are expected to be moved from the company's Los Angeles warehouse to Dallas.
Nautilus Hyosung is targeting the off-premises and financial-institution markets, said Carlos Siewczynski, Nautilus Hyosung USA's vice president of retail for self-service. The retail market will be reached through Nautilus Hyosung's independent sales organization channel. On the FI side, multiple channels will be used, including some direct sales.
NH says it will keep the 1500
Nautilus Hyosung spared no expense at its grand-opening celebration, putting all of its guests up in the posh Four Seasons Resort and Club in Dallas. And company heads took the one-on-one time with deployers to reiterate their promise to outdo their competitors - Triton Systems, NCR EasyPoint LLC (Tidel) and Tranax Technologies Inc. - in the retail ATM space.
"We are fully prepared to offer better services and prices than our competitors, and we are here to learn what we can from you," Cho said. "We want to know what you can tell us about the way we can improve the way we conduct our business."
Tranax and Nautilus Hyosung officially severed ties in January. Since that time, both companies have made strides to grow independently - Nautilus Hyosung with the opening of U.S. base in Dallas and Tranax with the move of its headquarters to Newark, Calif., as well as plans to put a corporate board of directors in place.
Since the two companies announced plans to separate, Nautilus Hyosung has sold 4,000 ATMs in the United States. Those sales, Siewczynski said, "reflect the market's high demand for the NH 1500 (formerly the Mini-Bank 1500 distributed by Tranax and manufactured by Nautilus Hyosung)."
To that end, Nautilus Hyosung said it would withdraw its plans to discontinue production of the 1500. The company had planned to replace the 1500 with its newest ATM, the NH 5010, which is expected to be released during the third quarter.
ATM Marketplace will publish more coverage from the grand-opening conference later week.
