According to supply chain news, Texas Instruments will remove the Serial Group from its list of authorized distributors in Asia by the end of this year.

In the statement that was revealed, TI’s original text is “Today, we gave Serial(one of TI's distribution partners in Asia) 90-day notification that TI is terminating for convenience the TI -  Serial distribution agreement. This distribution agreement will terminate on December 31, 2018. As you know, we are evaluating our worldwide distribution network and making changes as needed, as part of a larger effort to optimize our distribution network for order fulfillment. There are a number of factors involved in these evaluations. As the result of a recent evaluation of Serial, we have discovered issues that are not consistent with how TI conducts business.”

Founded in 1988, Serial Group was listed in Singapore in 1997 and has branches in Asia, including China, Singapore, India, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand. It is one of the largest distributors of electronic components in Asia. It is an authorized distributor of many well-known electronic component brands such as Texas Instruments, On Semiconductor, SK Hynix, TE, Molex...etc. According to industry insiders, the Serial Group has made a great contribution to the expansion of Texas Instruments' business in the Chinese market. The cancellation of the agency right is indeed very surprising. The reason may be the adjustment of Texas Instruments' distribution channel strategy.

As early as February 2017, WPG Group, in line with Texas Instruments' distribution channel adjustment strategy, streamlined the line card and improved the group's operational efficiency, transferred the TI product line authorized by its Yosun Group to World Peace Industrial Group. Since then, the number of authorized distributors of Texas Instruments in mainland China has been reduced from six to five, namely Avnet, Arrow, World Peace Industrial Group, WT Microelectronics and Serial Group. In addition to the removal of the Serial Group this time, there are only four authorized distributors left, namely Avnet, Arrow, World Peace Industrial Group and WT Microelectronics.

In fact, few years ago, there was news in the supply chain that Texas Instruments would reduce its reliance on authorized distributors and sell directly to major customers, although Texas Instruments has not yet fully moved to this model, from the channel adjustment in the past two years, it is not difficult to see that Texas Instruments is already in the layout.