Dover Corporation, originally incorporated in 1947 in the State of Delaware, became
a publicly traded company in 1955 with four operating divisions. It is a diversified
industrial manufacturing corporation encompassing 52 operating companies which
primarily manufacture a broad range of specialized industrial products and sophisticated
manufacturing equipment, and seek to expand their range of related services.
The Companys businesses are divided into four business segments. Diversified
builds packaging and printing machinery, heat transfer equipment, food refrigeration
and display cases, specialized bearings, construction and agricultural cabs,
as well as sophisticated products for use in the defense, aerospace and automotive
industries. Industries makes products for use in the waste handling, bulk transport,
automotive service, commercial food service and packaging, welding, cash dispenser
and construction industries. Resources manufactures products primarily for the
automotive, fluid handling, petroleum, original equipment manufacturers (OEM),
engineered components and chemical equipment industries.
In the Technologies segment, the rapid growth in datacom/telecom infrastructure
market development during the period 1997-2000, involving both equipment providers
and software developers such as Lucent, Motorola, Nortel, Cisco, Siemens, Phillips,
and Qualcomm, tended to concentrate the new product development and demand with
relatively few customers. At the same time, a number of these customers "outsourced"
a significant amount of their manufacturing capability to electronic manufacturing
services (EMS) companies such as Jabil, Solectron, Celestica, and Flextronics,
which firms are now the direct customers of Technologies companies for a number
of different OEM customers. Given the significant downturn in these markets
since 2000, and the shift in manufacturing, this has tended to increase the
concentration of manufacturing with the EMSs companies, particularly with those
located in China. Hence, machine and specialty component demand is concentrated
with a smaller number of "customers". The more significant Chinese
customers are Foxconn, Asustek, Inventec, Wistron and Arima.
In the other Dover segments, customer concentrations are quite varied. Companies
supplying the automotive and commercial refrigeration industries tend to deal
with a few large customers that are significant within those industries.
This also tends to be true for companies supplying the power generation, aerospace
and chemical industries. In the other markets served, there is usually a much
lower concentration of customers, particularly where the companies provide a
substantial number of products and services, applicable to a broad range of
end use applications.
In the Technologies segment, Dover competes globally against a few very large
companies, primarily operating in Japan, Europe and the Far East. Its primary
competitors are Japanese producers, including Fuji Machine, Panasonic and TDK,
and European manufacturers like Philips and Siemens.
Within the other segments, competition is primarily domestic, although an increasing
number of Dover companies see more international competitors and several serve
markets which are predominantly international, particularly Belvac, Quartzdyne,
RPA Process Technologies, Tipper Tie, Tranter, and Waukesha.