Finlux

Finlux is a brand of consumer electronic related products, ranging from radio receivers to plasma televisions and DVD players. Over the years, the brand has been owned by several international companies, currently being used by the Turkish electronics manufacturer Vestel.

History

The history of Finlux as a company name begins at 1971, when Iskumetalli, a subsidiary of the Finnish Lohja conglomerate, was renamed Finlux. Iskumetalli was founded in 1949 and had been manufacturing TV sets since 1958. Lohja had acquired the company in 1964, after which the TV-sets were marketed with brand name Finlux.

In 1977 Lohja started manufacturing Electroluminescence (EL) displays after purchasing the development project, headed by Dr. Tuomo Suntola. The EL displays were manufactured using atomic layer deposition (ALD) process developed in the project, and were marketed using Finlux brand.

In 1979 Lohja acquired another Finnish TV manufacturer, Asa Radio, which had been manufacturing radio receivers since 1927.

In 1991 the EL manufacturing was sold to Planar. A new company, Planar International was formed to continue manufacturing EL displays in Espoo, Finland. Planar later consolidated all of its EL manufacturing in Espoo and closed its Oregon EL facility. [cite web |url = http://www.planar.com/company/history/|title = Company History | year = 2008 | author = Planar Systems, Inc. | accessdate = 2008-02-07 ]

In 1992 Finlux TV manufacturing was sold to Nokia, which already was manufacturing TV sets with brands Salora, Schaub-Lorenz and Oceanic.

In 1996 Nokia sold all its TV factories and brand names to Hong Kong company Semi-Tech, which continued manufacturing TV sets in one factory in Finland until year 2000, when the Finnish subsidiary of Semi-Tech filed for bankruptcy.

A new company under the old Finlux name, owned by Norwegian company Otrum Electronics, was formed to continue TV manufacturing. However, they had serious troubles with their product line, which was based on CRT televisions. The market had swung to flat panel televisions and Finlux failed to switch in time. With 50 million euros in debt, the company filed for bankruptcy in September, 2005.

In 2006, the Turkish electronics company Vestel, owned by the Zorlu Holding corporate group, bought Finlux brand and the it is now focusing on flat-tv sets and other consumer electronic products like DVD players/recorders and DVB sets. Meanwhile all production and other related operations in Finland have been discontinued.

Since 2008 they will be the major sponsor of the Swedish team Hammarby IF.

Finlux sponsored Sheffield Wednesday Football Club from 1986 to 1988.

References

External links

* [http://www.finlux.fi Finlux in Finland]
* [http://www.finlux.es Finlux in Spain]