Bang & Olufsen

History

2018: Failure from the B&O Play brand and emphasis on expensive products

In July, 2018 Bang & Olufsen announced failure from the B&O Play brand under which mainly inexpensive earphones and other devices were issued. The solution the Danish company showed desire to develop only expensive most profitable products.

The company announced that all products will be on sale only under the name of Bang & Olufsen in the annual financial report. Having removed the B&O Play brand from the range, the producer of TVs and audio equipment will get rid of confusion which often arose at consumers when choosing products of the company.

B&O Play earphones

Bang & Olufsen polled users and found out that many respondents do not perceive a difference between the flagman Bang & Olufsen brand and budget B&O Play. The last at the same time brought to vendor nearly a half to 47% of income in 2017-2018 financial year whereas six years before this indicator it was measured by 13%.

Bang & Olufsen will continue release of goods which were designated by the name B&O Play earlier, however now they will be renamed. Rebranding is going to carry out gradually — one-two years.

However formally the B&O Play brand ceased to exist still on June 1, 2018. For several months the company is going to change packaging of products, work in Internet retail and marketing activity, having integrated all this under the unique brand.

Changes  are noticeable  already on July 19, 2018: small and budget columns from the B&O Play series appeared on the Bang & Olufsen page, however, online store at this subbrand still still separate.

Bang & Olufsen was several years unprofitable, but the situation changed after start of expensive TVs, like the BeoVision 14 model worth more than $11 thousand. The company spoke more than once about the desire to develop bonus products as in the mass sector to compete very difficult.^[1]

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