100,000 Units Milestone Celebrated

The Grand celebration for ‘A Rollout Hit of 100,000 Units & Become the No.1 Total Station Output Company In The World' was held in Beijing, China, on 29th October 2010. Vice Minister of Land and Resource and General Director of State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, Mr. Xu Deming, Deputy Chief of staff of Beijing Military Region, Mr.Gao Jianguo, as well as other leaders, experts, customers,and friends of SOUTH from Beijing, Tianjin and He Bei province, totally 140 people attended the grand ceremony.

The ceremony was presided by Vice President of SOUTH Group, Mr. Yang Zhenpeng. General President of SOUTH Group, Mr. Ma Chao, together with Vice president of SOUTH Group and General Manager of SOUTH Navigation Co., Ltd, Mr. Guo Siqing, Vice President of SOUTH Group, Professor Feng Zhongke, and the factory's directors all attended the ceremony.

On the ceremony, short films were put on the screen, for introducing ‘Two decades of development course of SOUTH', ‘SOUTH total station development history', and the evolution of China's total station from electronic distance meter, electronic theodolite , as well as SOUTH people's continuous innovation and its market strategy.

Vice Minister of Land and Resources and General Director of State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, Mr. Xu Deming said in his speech: I am so pleased to attend the ceremony, firstly I am moved by SOUTH with its ambition; secondly, I am moved by the rapid development of China's surveying industry, especially the growth of domestically produced surveying instruments.

Xu said, 16 years ago, SOUTH starts from zero, it adhered to the principle of independent innovation and strived for development, successfully breached the monopoly of imported equipments, developed the first total station and largely presented them to the market, it opened up a road for China made total station, and also saved money for general end users. Already today, sixteen years later, the 100,000th total station rolled out from SOUTH and make it become the No.1 Total Station Output Company in the world, its annual output triples the total sales volume of imported equipment in China. It occupied half of China's total station market and has become one of the world's largest manufacturer.

Xu Deming encouraged SOUTH to become ‘the banner' of China's surveying equipment manufacturers, he hopes SOUTH can full its speed and become a world-class surveying equipment manufacturer.

Mr. Ma Chao, General President of SOUTH Group summed up the three reasons for SOUTH's becoming the NO.1 total station output company. First factor is the system. The surveying equipment is a high-tech product, which need high-tech talent with strong R&D capabilities. SOUTH successfully united a large numbers of surveying-tech talents, who play significant role in SOUTH's development; Secondly, there is technological innovation. The quality of total station is a world-class problem, which contains many core technologies. SOUTH spent more than ten years to overcome these difficulties one by one, kept on independent innovation to solve technical problems while facing the adversity. At last, the systems have to be sold. At the start, foreign brands occupied the surveying instruments market in a considerable share. SOUTH created its own marketing model, set up a distribution network, offer door-to-door services, and communicate with customers face to face, which, at last successfully reserved the pattern of the domestic market.

Following that, the 100,000th SOUTH total station (S100,000) was slowly pushed to the podium, XU Deming, Gao Jianguo, Ma Chao unveiled this special total station together. This special unit has been donated to China Surveying and Mapping Museum, as it has already become a milestone in the Chinese surveying instrument developing history. Office Director Wu Zhaoqi, on behalf of the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, accepted the donation.

After the ceremony, leaders and guests visited SOUTH factory shop and listened to the explanation of the technicians.