Binatone is a British-Chinese

telecommunications company A telephone company, also known as a telco, telephone service provider, or telecommunications operator, is a kind of communications service provider (CSP), more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides telecommunicat ...

. Binatone was started in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

in 1958 by two brothers, Gulu Lalvani and Partap Lalvani, to import and distribute consumer electronics. The company was named after their sister, Bina.

Company history

Between 1976 and 1979, Binatone produced the "Binatone TV Master" series of

first generation video game consoles In the history of video games, the first generation era refers to the video games, video game consoles, and handheld video game consoles available from 1972 to 1983. Notable consoles of the first generation include the Odyssey series (excluding ...

. In 1983 Binatone was the first in Europe with fixed-line consumer products that could be bought at electronics retailers. This marked the beginning of a gradual change from Binatone's focus on audio and vision to telecom products. In 2008, Dino Lalvani, son of Gulu Lalvani, purchased the company from his father and took over as chairman. Binatone was the official shirt sponsor of

Queens Park Rangers Football Club Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is a professional football club based in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England, which compete in the . After a nomadic early existence, they have played home matches at Loftus Roa ...

from 2003 to 2006. Binatone manufactures products under its own brand apart from utilising the

AEG Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft AG (AEG; ) was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in Berlin as the ''Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität'' in 1883 by Emil Rathenau. During the Second World War, AEG ...

and

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

brands under licence.

Binatone Consoles

A very early console was the 'TV Game unit' but the first series was the 'TV master' series which are black & white pongs (first generation). * TV Master MK IV. * TV Master 4 plus 2. * TV Master MK 6. * TV Master MK 8. * TV Master MK 10. The Colour TV series are the same games but in Colour. * Colour TV Game. * Colour TV Game 4 plus 2. * Colour TV Game MK 6. * Colour TV Game MK 10.

Motorola

Binatone markets baby monitors, pet monitors,

telephones A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into el ...

headphones Headphones are a pair of small loudspeaker drivers worn on or around the head over a user's ears. They are electroacoustic transducers, which convert an electrical signal to a corresponding sound. Headphones let a single user listen to an au ...

and car accessories under the Motorola brand name under an agreement with

Motorola Mobility Motorola Mobility LLC, marketed as Motorola, is an American consumer electronics manufacturer primarily producing smartphones and other mobile devices running Android OS, Android. It is a subsidiary of the Chinese multinational technology company ...

and earlier,

Motorola Inc Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorola ...

Hubble Connected

Binatone also operates a subsidiary ''Hubble Connected'' that acts as a platform for connected devices. It acquired a

Bengaluru Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

-based startup ''Connovate'' in 2014 that merged into Hubble. In 2016, Dino Lalvani announced that Binatone intended to sell 20% of Hubble while shifting its corporate offices from the United States to Bengaluru, India.

External links

* *
Binatone Communications
*
Binatone Lifestyle

Motorola Home website

References

{{Queens Park Rangers F.C. shirt sponsors Electronics companies of the United Kingdom Mobile phone manufacturers British brands Motorola British companies established in 1958 Electronics companies established in 1958 Electronics companies of Hong Kong