Covid-19 is going to put many firms out of business, although successful companies may get government grants or loans for the short term. How important is B&O to the Danish government? 

Graham 

How impotent?

Well, perhaps a closing down would be the best thing that could happen after all 
At least it would perhaps - just perhaps - put a stop to all the damn rumours, storytellings and discussions about this!!
Better sell all your B&O stuff while there is time! You might lose money!!!! Go! Go! Go!

Or...?

Impotent? A misspelling that might be more accurate than it seems for B&O.

seethroughyou wrote:

This has been covered to death over the years and not just recently. What more can one say? We could list the mistakes that B&O have made and also the problems they have sadly faced. To me, they still seem marketing-obsessed, neglectful of their dealers and their long term devoted customer base, have non-existent customer service and have got disproportionately expensive despite salaries remaining stagnant or for most part in retrograde over the last 10 years. I want B&O to succeed but they won’t or can’t change.

To quote the article :

"As one observer said, “most people want to see and hear a premium audio or TV before they buy and right now with the Coronavirus this is hard”."

Without stores, as a premium AV brand, you're screwed in my opinion....

You can buy on brand reputation online (B&O have lost this thanks to their utterly embarrassing PLAY product reviews), or you can rely on being an 'aspirational brand' (B&O are nowhere near this with anyone under 45 years old, on the whole), and many of their loyal customers have defected to brands which offer 80% of the experience for 35% of the price.

B&O will go bust in their current form. I have little doubt if things continue as they are.

After that, it's who buys them - and how much they want to resurrect an iconic brand, with a beautiful history, and a network of dealers who desperately want the brand to be great again.

Hopefully the first thing they do is sack the current board, retain the amazing talent they have already employed, then get to work on rebuilding the reputation.

Please feel free to disagree with me, and state your case!

9 LEE wrote:

Please feel free to disagree with me, and state your case!

I don't disagree. You know me Lee. I was about to move to the States in March and that hasn't happened due to the current climate, so been looking at rebuilding some B&O kit, but with a little reluctance. As I work in technology publishing, before purchasing, I did some digging.

Dealers are really keen to do deals. I've just bought an Edge for 60% off. I've been told to 'name your price and I'll see what I can do' by another dealer. They want to clear stock. It's just sitting in closed stores earning them no money when many of them still need to pay rent.

I've also been told that forthcoming releases which were due imminently are now on hold and been told to tell people 'still in development' (Eclipse v2 for example). 

My view is, there's going to be a different world once we get back to normal from September. People won't have money. Even those with money will be reluctant to spend. Dealers know this. They can see what's coming. With this in mind, it's going to be hugely difficult to shift B&O product this year. Sadly I think it's too late to change. They needed to do that long before this current climate.

Barry Santini wrote:

Throw out all european management!!!

Get Trump in instead? "They have done a tremendous job...."