Finlux is a brand name used by Turkish manufacturer

Vestel Vestel is a Turkish home and professional appliances manufacturing company consisting of 18 companies specialised in electronics, major appliances and information technology. Vestel's headquarters and production plant are located in Manisa, while ...

for a line of consumer electronic related products, including flatscreen LED TVs and home cinema audio products. It was originally a brand name in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

used by Iskumetalli, and the company was then renamed as Finlux in 1971. Over the years, the brand has been owned by several international companies, including electronics giant Nokia in the 1990s. As of 2009 Finlux is owned by Europe's largest TV manufacturer,

History

The name Finlux first appeared in 1964, when Iskumetalli began marketing TV sets with that brand name after being acquired by the

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

Lohja conglomerate. Iskumetalli was founded in 1949 and had been manufacturing TV sets since 1958. In 1971, it was renamed Finlux; this was the first time that Finlux had been used as a company name. In 1977, Lohja started manufacturing Electroluminescence (EL) displays after purchasing the development project, headed by Dr.

Tuomo Suntola Tuomo Suntola (born 1943) is a Finnish physicist, inventor, and technology leader. He is best known for his pioneering research in materials science, developing the thin film growth technique called atomic layer deposition. Early life Suntola w ...

. The EL displays were manufactured using the 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 Planar is an adjective meaning "relating to a plane (geometry)". Planar may also refer to: Science and technology * Planar (computer graphics), computer graphics pixel information from several bitplanes * Planar (transmission line technologies), ...

. A new company, Planar International was formed to continue manufacturing EL displays in

Espoo Espoo (, ; sv, Esbo) is a city and municipality in the region of Uusimaa in the Republic of Finland. It is located on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordering the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, Kirkkonummi, Vihti and Nurmijärvi ...

, Finland. Planar later consolidated all of its EL manufacturing in Espoo and closed its

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

EL facility. In 1992, Finlux TV manufacturing was sold to

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...

, 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 Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

company Semi-Tech, which continued manufacturing TV sets in one factory in Finland until the year 2000, when the Finnish subsidiary of Semi-Tech filed for bankruptcy. A new company under the old Finlux name, owned by

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

company Otrum Electronics, was formed to continue TV manufacturing. However, they had serious troubles with their product line, which was based on CRT TVs. The market had swung to flat panel TVs 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

, owned by the

Zorlu Holding Zorlu Holding is a Turkish multinational conglomerate holding specialized in textiles, white goods, electronics manufacturing, energy, and financial services. Zorlu Holding is headquartered in Istanbul. History The Zorlu group was founded by Ha ...

corporate group, bought the Finlux brand.

Sponsorship

Finlux was the main shirt sponsor for the Swedish team Hammarby 2008–2009. Finlux sponsored Sheffield Wednesday Football Club from 1986 to 1989, with the unfortunate consequence that the brand name still appears on footage from the Hillsborough disaster.

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.finlux.com Defunct companies of Finland Electronics companies of Finland 2006 mergers and acquisitions