Scenario: Your family or friends are on holiday, and have been snapping photos of one another. Back on the tour bus, you switch on your camera to transmit photos – wirelessly – to your friend. The effective transmission range is up to10m.
The little piece of hardware that makes this possible is called FluCard and was invented by Trek 2000, the Singapore company that invented the ThumbDrive. Thanks to the FlucCard, you don’t have to wait till you are home in Singapore to send photos via email.
TREK 2000 is one of a rare few Singapore companies that have come up with creations that have enjoyed worldwide success and in the process created a new breed of products.
Its ThumbDrive, introduced to the world about 10 years ago, led to the demise of the floppy drive.
Now it has the FluCard, potentially a world-class act. Asked how the idea for the FluCard came about, Mr Henn Tan, chairman of Trek 2000, recalled being on holiday in Chengdu with his family in 2005.
He told NextInsight: “On the third day, my daughter misplaced our camera. I was upset. It wasn’t the camera but the photos which I missed as our holiday place was absolutely beautiful. I was thinking: ‘I am supposed to be a specialist in external storage media. How could I have gotten the photos to be transmitted immediately?”
Recently, at Trek 2000’s office in Loyang Way, we watched (open-mouthed) a demonstration of how FluCard enables photos taken of us by a Trek executive to be transmitted wirelessly from a camera to another within 10 m – and from a camera to our iPhones.
Most amazingly was how, with the flick of one’s wrist, a camera equipped with a FluCard can send a photo to another camera.
Yes, the flick of one’s wrist activates the transmission! It's the hi-tech version of an angel wielding a magic wand to execute a magical event.
Such wizardry is available to most existing digital cameras which have a SD (Secure Digital) card holder as the cameras will work fine with the FluCard inserted – just get rid of the SD card and replace it with the FluCard. Masses of consumers can adopt the invention right away.
Given this vast market, Trek has embarked on selling the FluCard directly to consumers via the electronic stores such as Challenger and Gain City in Singapore and via its website (www.trek2000.com.sg).
Trek has a strategy to ramp up sales globally by tieing up with a consortium of Japanese camera makers, including Toshiba Corporation, which has 17.84% stake in Trek, to launch cameras which incorporate the FluCard.
Japanese camera makers command the largest market share in the world, selling millions of units a year. Their first FluCard-equipped cameras are scheduled to be launched in January next year.
More on the FluCard’s specs
The FluCard, which has storage capacities ranging from 8GB to 64GB, is Wi-Fi enabled and is more than just for capturing and sharing transmitting photos from a camera to another.
It can also be used to send photos to digital photo-frames, television, computers or laptops and many other equipment which have SDIOs or SD Card host slots through which the FluCard can be inserted.
And the card works fine also with video cameras for the sharing of video clips.
The FluCard transmits photos and video clips to the nearest recipient. It can be programmed to send to multi-users.
With the purchase of a FluCard, which costs US$150 for a pair with 8GB capacity each at Trek’s website, each user is given 2GB of space on a portal created by Trek to store their photos.
So after taking photos, users can upload their photos to their accounts in the portal which are accessible via their username and password.
The upload is done in Wi-Fi friendly locations such as shopping malls or via an Internet connection through their smartphones.
DMG’s earnings forecast for Trek
Mr Tan is confident of a rapid spread of the use of the FluCard, and its falling costs over the years, which would lead to the demise of the SD card.
“We are all fired up over the FluCard,” said Gucharan Singh, Trek’s CFO.
The FluCard is expected to take Trek’s profit level to a new dimension. In an Aug 15 report, DMG & Partners analyst James Lim forecasted the FluCard could account for 92% of Trek’s earnings in FY2011.
His forecast for Trek’s total net earnings is $14.9 million in FY11 versus $4.1 million this year. At the recently traded 47 cents, the stock was on a PE of 6.8X next year’s forecast earnings. DMG's internal target is 55 cents for the stock.
After its core ThumbDrive business boosted the company’s half-year financial performance (profit after tax rose 138.1% to US$1.3 million), Mr Tan, said, “We are extremely delighted to record strong earnings for the first-half of 2010 and are confident that the company will see even greater growth when our FluCard™ is introduced into markets from the fourth quarter of this year.”
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