Another purveyor of luxury goods seems to be in trouble. Bang & Olufsen has forecast lower profit and sales for the year for the third time. The Denmark-based company has said that they have seen less of a demand for luxury consumer electronics and they are also facing legal disputes. Bloomberg reports that shares have lost almost two-thirds of its value this year.
Bang & Olufsen is in a tricky spot because their products often cost more double or triple what a similar products would cost from another manufacturer. While Bang & Olfusen products often have really fantastic design and a distinctive look in an economic crunch that might not be be enough to keep customers shopping. Analysts say that Bang & Olufsen may have to find a partner for their electronics business as technology increases and if profits continue to fall. Bang & Olufsen is scheduled to release fiscal 2008 earnings in August and hopes that profit will improve. I'm certainly pulling for them. They've had a few design clunkers over the years (I think their Serene cell phone is a bit of a miss) and their products may be overpriced at times but no other company produces consumer electronics that are quite as distinctive.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-08-2008 @ 9:31PM
Todd M. said...
Uh... could it have anything to do with the fact that B&O's products don't do anything that every other consumer electronics brand does? I was in high-school when the B&O line came to prominence (among luxury consumers) in the US and as a tech-nerd I was smitten with them. They were the cutting edge of technology and reeked of cool modern design. Since then, every other consumer brand has begun to offer products of comparable and many times better quality and B&O has lost touch with the mainstream in terms of palatable design. They really only distinguish themselves with a higher price-tag and only fools relish that distinction.
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7-08-2008 @ 10:17PM
JEBCEO said...
I agree with you, Todd. I think the move towards "hidden" technology (i.e., speakers that mask as columns, etc) as opposed to technology as art/design really hurt them as well.
7-09-2008 @ 5:40AM
john said...
yeah... too bad. but the issue here is not only durability and aesthethics, from which B&O cannot be questioned, its about keeping upbreast with market demand and ground breaking technology. why don't they have LCD's or OLED's? Why isn'th there a BEO9000 DVD or Blu-ray player? I guess its because of the quality and design that is so timeless and enduring that they don't want to risk it on experimental stage techs. But, hello... thats what they did a decade ago and it was amazing! 'Guess they should wake up and rekindle their passion. By the way, the phone Serena with SAMSUNG and it's so called "intuitive design"(where o where... it's plain grotesque!), not a miss, its totally CRAP forever!
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