Sales Manager Richard Z.J.Lee and
President Jean-Louis VILLANDRE and
Marketing&Product Development Manager

    SAUERMANN company is established in Paris in 1976.Mr.Jean-Louis VILLANDRE began to server as the President of SAUERMANN from 1990.In 1996,SAUERMANN put its business onto specially producing and selling consendated water wipe-offing pump used in air conditioner. SAUERMANN has the most exhaustive product line  of consendated water wipe-offing pump。SAUERMANN′products has covered the market of 48 countries and areas such as  Europe, North America, Australia，Southeast Asia. SAUERMANN builds up the contact with many world famous air conditioner companies by providing OEM fittings.

    The board chairman of SAUERMANN Shanghai Company Mr. Jean-Louis VILLANDRE, the Product manager Mr. Antoine CHAUVIN and Sales manager Mr.Li zhijian accepted the interview of the editor of Huicong HVACR trade on 10th April 2006 on the 2006 China Refrigetion Exhibition. 

    HC Web: SAUERMANN has the most exhaustive product line of condensate pumps among the industry, but many Chinese clients know little about SAUERMANN Company. Would you like to introduce the development of SAUERMANN in China?

    Jean-Louis：SAUERMANN is a European company that is why a few Chinese people have information about us yet. So we will make great efforts to show SAUERMANN products and quality to Chinese clients. We have now built a very modern factory in Shanghai. It has the same equipments and management methods as SAUERMANN France has. We not only constructed a manufacture team but also a sales team in order to strengthen the investment on the China market. We have no doubt we will gain the same success on China market as we did on the European one.

    HC Web: What is the material operation of SAUERMANN in China? And how SAUERMANN gets its position on Chinese market?

    Jean-Louis：At the beginning, when SAUERMANN first started to sell on the China market, some problems embarrassed our sales, such as the time of delivery, the feeble aspects on sales and technology support. So we decided to set up a professional manufacture factory in Shanghai two years ago.

    At first, we will commit ourselves to produce the centrifugal drainage pump that is supplied to OEM Air conditioner manufacturers. Our first strategic aim is to arrange with some great Chinese air conditioner manufacturers such as Midea, Gree and Haier and finally become their supplier. Our second strategic aim is that we hope we can make our most successful pumps (used for projects) provide for common clients on Chinese market and construct our dealers network at the same time.

    HC Web: What are characteristics or advantages of a condensate pump?

    Jean-Louis：Condensate pumps are mostly used to get rid of the condensate water of air conditioners, cooling boxes and boilers. Condensate pumps are made of a pump body and a separate or integrative liquid level switch. It works directly by attraction without any gradient to drain condensate water.
 
    This kind of product’s main technical advantages are its small cubage, security and convenience. Especially, its small cubage is designed for applied space. Meanwhile, this product avoids condensate water flowing backwards and reduces bacteria pollution caused by flow-backwards sewerage.

    HC Web: How do you see the future development of the condensate pump business in China?

    Jean-Louis：As we know, the condensate pump business can be divided into two markets: the first one is OEM, which aims at air conditioner manufacturers such as Gree, Midea and Haier. These companies have high growth speed on refrigeration market, and quantities of export of those products rise quickly. Although the market capacity of China is not as big as Japan and Korea, the future is more promising than for other countries. The Chinese market’s capacity is about one million units. As far as it goes, all of large enterprises focus on increasing market investment and sales strength in this field. OEM is a very important and market with high potential.

    The second market is the projects needing some pumps. Chinese projects growth is also fast and, consequently, the demand for blower fan coil will have expanding applied foreground in the future. But because there is no specific rule to respect, SAUERMANN condensate pump are not widely used in China, yet. Deeper reason is that the companies in China regard cost as a very important thing, so they usually avoid using pumps, still considered as extras. But if all of persons fix their air conditioners at discretionary places, even drain the water at any place, at that time, it is sure that the government will restrict all of these things from happening. I believe the development process in China is the same as European market. A criterion will be constituted when society or economy reaches a more mature stage. At that time, the importance of condensate pump will be recognized. We also hope we could lead Chinese clients to pay attention to this market by our effort. Although this project pump is not popular at present, we hope its diffusion rate rise up even higher than our OEM pumps.

    HC Web: When both Chinese and overseas companies entered that market, they usually set up distribution channel as their products’ marketing network.  What is marketing idea of SAUERMANN?

    Jean-Louis：Our dealers help us to sell our project pumps which is the same as in all other  countries. We hope to contact new clients throughout our dealers network, because we can’t directly cover ourselves all areas. But dealer network will help us to get to know, understand and satisfy our clients’ demands.  

    HC Web: So what is the biggest hope for attending this exhibition? 

    Jean-Louis：China Refrigeration 2006 is a very big exhibition. We hereby hope that we could gradually make the Chinese companies get to know our products and, of course, this will also push our sales development. Meanwhile, this exhibition is also providing us a good opportunity to feel and get information about the market and its demands. We have also reserved a space at the China Refrigeration 2007 in Guangzhou in the same optic.

    HC Web: Have you any plan to generalize the products?

    Jean-Louis：In fact, there is no generalized plan of industrial product. At present, we should collect market information and the demands of clients, then decide how to do in the future. Finally, we could generalize new products adapted to the market.

    点击查看中文

    A better way to know and track the quality of china suplliers