D-Link 2008 Annual Report Download - page 3

D-Link Annual Report 2008 02
>> Letter to Our D-Link
Family
It is hard to believe that more than a year has gone by since
my predecessor, Mr. Ken Kao, passed away. However, his
legacy lives on. D-Link is built on his unwavering strength of
leadership, determination and vision.
In fact, his business philosophy is largely responsible for
D-Link’s ability to withstand the recent global economic storm.
Although the challenges are larger than most experts would
have imagined at the end of 2008 and entering 2009, we are
now in a better position to emerge into calmer waters with
more optimism and opportunity than many of our competitors.
Our new management team began with a clear set of goals,
including our continued eorts to control expenses, a
refreshed look at forming and maintaining global alliances,
aggressively engaging our channels at all levels, consolidating
and leveraging our supply chain along with other resources
such as marketing, logistics and product planning.
Despite several recessions during our 23 years of existence,
D-Link generated consistent year-to-year double-digit
revenue growth along with continued global market share
expansion. Even during the current downturn, we managed
to be protable.
Regionally, Europe focused on new telecom projects to
generate new business, as did our Emerging Markets and
APAC, while North America showed the SME market that it is
not just a consumer/digital home power.
D-Link oers the best value proposition for computer
networking solutions in both the business and home
environments. We have world-class engineering, award-
winning design, a diversied product portfolio, hands-
on service and responsive support, unparalleled speed
to market, aggressive sales and marketing, and the most
competitive pricing the industry has to oer. If the world’s
economy had stayed on a steady course in 2008, D-Link was
on track to continue its record-breaking year-to-year revenue
growth, prot increases and market share dominance.
According to one of the world’s leading market research
companies, the Gartner Group, D-Link was the undisputed
leader in 2008 of worldwide shipments of Ethernet small
enterprise switch ports – 13 million for a 32 percent market
share. The annual research study also revealed that we claimed
the second spot in worldwide shipments of all switch ports –
small enterprise and medium-to-large enterprise – with 16.3
percent, far surpassing the immediate competitor.
Another major area of strength can be summed up in one
word – Green.
2008 was a major milestone for our D-Link Green initiative
as we continued to expand our eorts to save energy
without compromising performance. As the rst networking
company to pioneer Green networking, we expanded
our energy-saving innovation which can be found almost
across all product lines, from switches, Wi-Fi routers, network
attached storage (NAS), digital photo frames, PowerLine
network adapters and more. Our strict standards for Green
compliance include incorporating energy-saving technology,
working with government-regulated standards such as WEEE,
RoHS and ENERGY STAR, and using eco-friendly sustainable
packaging, such as sleeveless design, recyclable cardboard
trays and soy ink.
In addition to our eorts and the prestigious awards we have
received for them, we continue to support local programs
for the recycling, reuse and reclamation of products and
packaging. Building innovative Green technology into our
products is part of our commitment to seek new avenues to
protect our environment and help consumers save energy in
the process.
Financial Update
Although the nancial crisis suddenly turned around the
global economy into the recessionary stage, D-Link managed
to gain revenue totaling NT$33.050 billion, only half percent
lower than in 2007. However, in US currency, D-Link revenues
grew 3.5 percent from the previous year. Due to the tough
economic circumstances, especially in the second half of 2008,
our gross margin slipped to 32.6 percent, 1.7 percent lower
than 2007.
D-Link Annual Report 2008
John Lee
Chairman
D-Link Group