by Martina Fuchs

GENEVA, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- Bracken Darrell, chief executive officer (CEO) of Swiss computer peripherals manufacturer Logitech, told Xinhua in a recent interview that he was bullish on the business outlook in China and that his company was committed to investing there in the long run.

"China has been a great market for us since we first entered, way back in 1991, and we've grown a lot there through the years," Darrell said.

"It's our second largest market and we're obviously continuing to be super excited about the Chinese market. We think it will be a great growth area for us in the long term."

Logitech established its presence in Chinese mainland in 1991 and opened its first manufacturing facility in Suzhou in 1994, which remains Logitech's main manufacturing center in China.

The factory helps the company rapidly test innovations, ramp up and down production according to demand, and offer intellectual property (IP) protection.

"We have launched products in China for China, and we have a long-term plan to continue to develop products that will be super appealing in China. It's such a great market with so many young people and young-at-heart people like me. It's a terrific market and we have a lot of people working in China."

"We're very optimistic about the long term, so we'll keep our eyes on China and our people in China developing products for China, but also for the rest of the world," Darrell said.

Logitech posted a 66 percent jump in quarterly sales on Tuesday as demand for its products skyrocketed thanks to the trends of working from home, virtual conferencing and video gaming during the COVID-19 pandemic, Darrell told Xinhua.

The maker of keyboards, mice, headsets and webcams saw sales rise to 1.31 billion U.S. dollars during the second quarter of 2021, up from 792 million U.S. dollars year-on-year.

"We're super excited about the start to the year and optimistic about the full year." He said that stay-at-home workers and the rise of online gaming had fueled his company's performance.

"COVID-19 really just accelerated some things that were already happening," Darrell said. "We've been in those trends already and we believe they'll keep going long after the pandemic is over."

Logitech, which was founded in 1981 in Lausanne, Switzerland, plays as one of the world's largest hardware companies.