Kudelski-Nagravision gets closer to China market with new DTV R&D center

The Kudelski Group opened a new digital TV research and development center and office in Beijing last month, bringing the digital content management conglomerate closer to the lucrative Chinese market and reducing its costs for serving that market.

The company's Nagravision division has been well established in China for a decade, and the company supplied conditional access and DRM technology for the nationwide mobile TV CMMB service, which was launched for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Nagravision was also an early supporter of Europe's DVB-H mobile TV standard.

The new center will offer expertise in system development and localization for the Chinese market, mobile TV and DTV middleware, development, integration and testing.

"The choice of Beijing has been motivated by the quality and the availability of the engineers issued from highly renowned universities in the Beijing area and by the proximity to key partners of the Kudelski Group in this region,” said Kudelski Group CEO and Chairman André Kudelski, noting that joint R&D projects with local customers are already in the pipeline.