mawheele wrote:

The product and product marketing teams - including those on TV - are doing a good job bearing in mind their limited R&D options

So you are eluding to the fact that the limited R/D resources perhaps are not enough?  If so I totally agree. You cannot axe the entire video wing and expect to end up with anything else than an Eclipse, which despite having stellar video and sound is a complete disaster in the technical architecture.

Who is responsible for the doom and gloom (and I woudltn cal it that anyway)....me or the company reporting its recent performance?

As for whether they exit the Tv business, I've always accepted they may change their mind, and to be fair many of us have been told as such, in addition to Roger's fairly well explained post last year.

Even if they remain in the TV segment, that has not served them especially well in recent years - again, not my fault. Theirs.

The issue some have with your response to the results is that you were leaning on the CEO's effective take - that low demand from dealers is at fault, not the product offering. Of course the truth will be somewhere in between, but I don't think its a stretch to conclude that 10K TV's is a tougher sell than they used to be.

None of these challenges suddenly disappear if they release a new model.

Re: Gloom And Doom

Some people, after the Titanic hit the iceberg, were concerned about sinking. Some pooh poohed that, saying nonsense, now we have plenty of ice for the champagne!

BEOVOX141 wrote:

So you are eluding to the fact that the limited R/D resources perhaps are not enough? If so I totally agree. You cannot axe the entire video wing and expect to end up with anything else than an Eclipse, which despite having stellar video and sound is a complete disaster in the technical architecture.

Why do you say that? Do you own one?

The Eclipse is the most reliable and performant B&O Tv I’ve owned in the past 20 year and I’d include the CRTs in that list. And it’s managing the most complex configuration I’ve attached to it. B&O walking from chassis and OS design is likely to have dramatically improved customer satisfaction. Anyone heard of a firmware issue recently?

Have you had a different experience?

beocool wrote:

vikinger wrote:

Apparently Aston Martin Lagonda shares are down 40% since their Oct 2018 launch. Does this indicate that the luxury markets have peaked and that B&O had better refocus again?

Graham

Not necessarily. It's quite dangerous to look at the share price of one company and turn it into an indicator for a certain line of business or in this case the luxury market. If you look at LVMH stock price for instance it closed at € 258,20 at the end of last year. Last Friday it said € 324,10 on the boards. If you take that as an indicator you would imagine the luxury market about to explode.

I would try and look for indicators like the S&P global luxury index, which is based on 80 of the largest publicly traded companies. At the time of writing, this index shows a decline of 2.6% over the last year. 

Agree, it's just one indicator. Just like the sudden top end property selling price drops of certain cities like London and SF. Some indicators may give you a view of the likely market trends before those trends are actually confirmed by S&P indices. 

B&O were once the masters of disguising CRT TVs and somehow making them elegant when no other manufacturer could stand comparison. Now all TVs are relatively elegant, so B&O no longer have a USP in that area, other than elegant motorised stands and wall mounts.

With music streaming B&O should have been way ahead of the game with it's early adoption of active speakers..... so what, if anything,  went wrong in this area?

Graham

An interesting take on Loewe's strategy to survive in the luxury space, assuming that they will, long term. Here is one quote but the article is worth a look. 

“Hisense is a partner with Loewe only in a small way, and only in the bild 1. However the bild 1 is 80% made by Loewe and Loewe only. We only use their panel, while the engine, power supply, chassis and circuitry is all Loewe proprietary, the software utilises the Loewe OS software which provides seamless connectivity to all Loewe products. Loewe had many offers — including Apple — however Loewe had to be owned 100% under German influence. The heritage and the history must be kept the same for it to be successful and to remain true to its word. We are very proud of this. And our partner in Australia, Indi Imports, is already moving with the passion and drive that we have here in Kronach, Germany.”

Loewe was the darling of Beoworld a year ago or so.........seems to have faded now - or not!?

MM

They seem to get some things very right:

 

"The bild 7 is an outstanding OLED debut from Loewe, with the 55-incher we reviewed featuring the highest peak brightness we've extracted from any OLED TV to date. Together with remarkable tone mapping, this delivered some of the most impressive HDR images from an OLED we've ever laid eyes on."

HDTVtest.co.uk - May 2017

I think Loewe was really clever. They build more or less one TV with different equipment variants.

Take their OLED 55: one display, one software, different lines and different price ranges.

bild3 OLED 55: Stereo 2x40W ----> ~2500 - 3000€

bild5 OLED 55: Stereo 2x80W, but optional 5.1-decoder, HDD inbuild ---> ~3500 - 4000€

bild7 OLED 55: 120 W Soundbar incl. 5.1 Audio-Decoder, HDD inbuild ---> ~5000€

 

Special stand solutions cost extra (but the standard table stand comes with the tv)

 

I think a product like the BV Eclipse is a wonderful top of the range product, but if it's the only tv in the B&O range with a normal size and Display technology, then I'm not surprised that sales collapse and potential customers are looking for alternatives.

 

The Loewe TV's are amazing at the moment, and very affordable!