Q&A with Ameta International CEO, Fan Chen

April 22, 2021

Identiv recently announced an exclusive partnership with Ameta International to distribute Freedom Access Control and Enterphone telephone entry product lines to the United States and Canada. This partnership comes at a critical time; the pandemic continues its drastic impact on the access control market and social distancing and low or no-touch options are high in demand. Earlier this month, we sat down with Ameta International CEO, Fan Chen (via Zoom, of course), to discuss the partnership, industry insights, and more. Here are a few highlights from that conversation.

In what capacity will Identiv and Ameta International be working together? Fan: Ameta is going to introduce Identiv's Enterphone and Freedom Access Control product lines to all of our branches and our entire customer base. Can you give us some insight on the market impact of this partnership and why this integration is necessary? Fan: So Ameta, unlike other traditional distributors, is capable of executing the design and the supply of full solutions to our dealers. With Identiv onboard, I think we can make some significant improvements in the vertical markets we are targeting. For example, right now we are working on a project in student residences and retirement homes to change traditional locks to wireless locks. For this type of retrofit project, we can integrate with Identiv to put the public area access control and the individual unit access control on the same platform. There's a few other examples. We are leading our dealers to change regular push buttons to contact-free push buttons during the pandemic. The purpose is to reduce virus transmission in high-traffic, high-touch areas, like elevator cabins. We believe that by integrating with Identiv, we can then lead the trend because there is very high demand in our area, especially for those high-risk buildings like condominiums. We want to set this up as a new standard as the market continues to grow. Just as an example, in Toronto in 2020, we had more than 20,000 apartment units under construction. That's a lot of new buildings and a strong potential market. What do you hope to see come out of this partnership? Fan: This one is Ameta’s first as a distributor. We are the bridge between our dealers, our customers, and Identiv, the manufacturer. So, what's our mission? Our biggest goal is to educate and grow our dealers with quality products, like Identiv's. Then on the other hand, we also want to foster a relationship between our dealers and Identiv. Identiv already has a great product and a very good market, but with more educated dealers, I believe we can attain greater market share. Over the past year, because of COVID, a lot of companies and industries have looked more into touchless technology. Is that something that you see continuing even after COVID is under control? Is that just the way you see the industry going, or do you think that is a result of the past year? Fan: Well firstly, this pandemic has lasted for so long. There are so many things that have become a habit to us. For example, automatic doors: we are doing a lot of those because most new installations are switching to that. This is a very significant change because we used to sell push style doors and now, we’re seeing demand for all of this new, touchless or low-touch technology. I have people saying to me that they're going to keep using it because in many environments, this is better than the previous one. There is some other technology as well, like temperature tracking devices. We do have customers installing those at construction sites because of the new rules and regulation. For example, one customer told us they're going to keep using the temperature tracking device because it not only checks the temperature, it also helps the construction site take attendance because it has facial recognition technology and the temperature tracking — it’s sort of an all-in-one solution.

As a leading manufacturer of integrated security and identity systems for global markets, Identiv’s success depends on the mutual respect and long-term loyalty built with our distribution partners. Thanks to Ameta International’s expertise, growing channel partner network, solutions and local knowledge, we continue to provide innovative product offerings in rapidly growing markets. To learn more about Identiv’s Freedom or Enterphone solutions, contact +1 888.809.8880 or sales@identiv.com.