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Share price drop?
Tracking an old groove I know but.............target middle-class, professional types rather than soccer players, Russian\Chinese\gangsters\nouveau riche, and set prices accordingly!
If cash is tight, don't spend it developing silly docks for iPads that can change at a moments notice, spend it on best bang for bucks products - making a respectable entry in the "serious" earbud and proper (assuming they are real "hifi" rather that "Beats" equivalents) headphone market is a good step forward!
Anyone can read this of give a synopsis: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3/3bbba4d6-9307-11e2-b3be-00144feabdc0.html
No-one can read that, apart from the title, unless they are a Premium subscriber. Can anyone paste (some) of the text? A synopsis?
Irony here is that that BeoPlay products are the fastest growing sector (DKK 162 million up from DKK 78 million for the same period the previous year) for B&O, yet most people on here spend their time telling B&O it's an area they should drop and concentrate on their "core values" (where the report clearly shows that the core AV revenue was down to DKK 362 million from DKK 559 million in the same quarter the previous year - which by my reckoning is a drop of a staggering 63%). Oops!
I've also translated this, which doesn't look good, from a Swedish interview with Tue: Worried the company has always been at the television business. "TV is really difficult," said company president Mantoni had in December said in an interview with the Swiss business magazine "balance". "In the last ten years, we earned no money."
also a big problem is the auto motive sector. Mercedes is switching from B&O to Burmeister which deliver same quality but less expansive....Other Automotive brands could switch..
Anyone can read this of give a synopsis: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3/3bbba4d6-9307-11e2-b3be-00144feabdc0.html
No-one can read that, apart from the title, unless they are a Premium subscriber. Can anyone paste (some) of the text? A synopsis?
if you register you get a few free views per month.
Doesn't copy and paste too well but here it is:
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our link and for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights.link
Bang & Olufsen’s share price chart looks a bit like a sound wave. The last peak came during the build up to the financial crisis and since then it has rolled over hard. At Dkr52, shares in the Danish audio and visual electronics group are less than a tenth of their value in 2007. A profit warning on Friday sent the stock down another 12 per cent.
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LEX
Surround sound systems and televisions are Bang & Olufsen’s biggest segment accounting for more than half of sales. The problem is that when the global economy is on mute it becomes harder to justify the remortgaging of the house for a £4,000 television or a £600 radio. And Bang & Olufsen has been slow to move away from the region suffering the most – it derives almost three quarters of revenues from Europe. The company is trying to move into China and the US but this is only happening slowly. Granted, some parts of its business such as speakers and headphones for portable digital gadgets, and sound systems for Aston Martins, are doing well. But these areas are still not large enough to counter revenue declines in its main business.
Furthermore, Bang & Olufsen’s annual revenues of just $520m a year are just 1 per cent of Sony’s. That gives it no scale in a competitive market. It also means fewer funds to spend on research and development. Sony spends just 6 per cent of its revenues on R&D, yet this $5bn is one hundred times more than Bang & Olufsen spends. That makes it even more difficult for the Danish company to persuade its customers that its televisions and sound systems are significantly better for the price. Nevermind that the $58m it spends on R&D annually is 11 per cent of its revenues.
All that makes chief executive Tue Mantoni’s ambitions look fanciful. In 2011 his hope was to increase annual revenues to Dkr10bn by 2016 – which would require them to grow by an average 30 per cent. Yet this year, which ends in May, revenues will come in at Dkr2.9bn, the same level as 2011. Meanwhile, an expected loss before earnings, interest and tax is a long way short of Mr Mantoni’s target for 12 per cent ebit margins by 2016. Bang & Olufsen will be lucky if its share price chart keeps resembling a sound wave.
Email the Lex team in confidence at lex@ft.com
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Report Thoresen | March 24 1:23pm | PermalinkB&O make wonderful AV. Often vilified by audiophile purists, but their top of the range speakers are the best on the market at any price, and their Icepower amplifiers are inside a lot of their competitors wares. I hope they survive.
Doesn't copy and paste too well but here it is:
Thanks. You could just copy and paste the body text in to Notepad (which would strip all the code and formatting), then paste in to the forum. Would also remove the bits above and below it. Maybe a mod might want to edit that?
I guess it doesn't tell us anymore than we couldn't figure for ourselves though. Not looking good. For the first time in ages, I have that feeling in my stomach where I'm a tad nervous about B&O's future. I know some users have said they are better away from TV production, but that's always been the first device I buy from B&O. And generally, dust inside the glass aside, I'm happy with the BV11 (although I wouldn't have bought it full price though).
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