Electronics in Australia

[Jeff]

Hi all,

I was just down at big-w tonight and noticed some AWA badged TV's recently
for sale. Ive also noticed some RCA and Magnavox TV's for sale as well.
These are all old brands and was wondering whats going on? A chinese outfit
with a licence to badge old brandnames on their crap? The TV's look ok but
nothing spectacular.

Also whats happened with regard to AWA? Is it dead? I remember reading in
the financial columns that they are just fixing the pokies these days at the
casino's? And I also read that AWADI was bought by BAE Systems........

With no major australian owned consumer electronics business in this
country.... what a sorry tale our high-tech industry is....

Jeff

 

[Oldus Fartus]

On 3/09/2003 10:24 PM, Jeff wrote:

Hi all,

I was just down at big-w tonight and noticed some AWA badged TV's recently
for sale. Ive also noticed some RCA and Magnavox TV's for sale as well.
These are all old brands and was wondering whats going on? A chinese outfit
with a licence to badge old brandnames on their crap? The TV's look ok but
nothing spectacular.

RCA is now owned by Thomson, and Magnavox (AFAIK) by Philips.

Also whats happened with regard to AWA? Is it dead? I remember reading in
the financial columns that they are just fixing the pokies these days at the
casino's? And I also read that AWADI was bought by BAE Systems........

With no major australian owned consumer electronics business in this
country.... what a sorry tale our high-tech industry is....

Jeff

Not just Australia either Jeff, I believe even in the US locally owned
manufacturers have all but disappeared.


--
Cheers
Oldus Fartus

 

[the swan]

Jeff wrote:

Hi all,

I was just down at big-w tonight and noticed some AWA badged TV's recently
for sale. Ive also noticed some RCA and Magnavox TV's for sale as well.
These are all old brands and was wondering whats going on? A chinese outfit
with a licence to badge old brandnames on their crap? The TV's look ok but
nothing spectacular.

Also whats happened with regard to AWA? Is it dead? I remember reading in
the financial columns that they are just fixing the pokies these days at the
casino's? And I also read that AWADI was bought by BAE Systems........

AWA was broken up and parts sold off to other companies. Plessey (South
Africa) bought a lot of the project and manufacturing stuff, other parts
were sold off to other organisations. AWA retained gaming and wagering
(totes, Keno, services and distribution etc). Eventually Jupiters bought
the wagering business and (I believe) the rights to the AWA brand. The
totes business was then sold off to TAB. I think the service and
distribution business still operates. Plessey also eventually sold off
the businesses it bought to other entities (or closed them down) and now
operates Commander Communications (was the PlesTel business).

AWA stopped making consumer goods in the late 60's I think, when the
Japanese brands started making serious dents in revenues worldwide. The
same happened with the motor vehicle industry in the US and UK.

With no major australian owned consumer electronics business in this
country.... what a sorry tale our high-tech industry is....

You don't need to have a major autralian owned consumer electronics
business to have a high-tech industry. These days a lot of bleeding-edge
high-tech companies still operate. They are generally small, on lean
budgets and attempt to operate in niche markets. Getting adequate
funding can be more of a problem in Australia than in the US though.

Jeff

 

[KLR]

On Thu, 4 Sep 2003 00:24:18 +1000, "Jeff" <noflames@flame.org> wrote:

Hi all,

I was just down at big-w tonight and noticed some AWA badged TV's recently
for sale. Ive also noticed some RCA and Magnavox TV's for sale as well.
These are all old brands and was wondering whats going on? A chinese outfit
with a licence to badge old brandnames on their crap? The TV's look ok but
nothing spectacular.

Also whats happened with regard to AWA? Is it dead? I remember reading in
the financial columns that they are just fixing the pokies these days at the
casino's? And I also read that AWADI was bought by BAE Systems........

With no major australian owned consumer electronics business in this
country.... what a sorry tale our high-tech industry is....

Jeff

I don't think AWA has manufactured its own TV's here since the time

Colour came along. Almost all AWA sets (about 20) up to about early
90's vintage that I can recall seeing over the years have Mitsubishi
tubes and PCB's in them. Whether they are fully imported and rebadged
or whether they imported only the PCB's and still made the cabinets
etc here I dont know.

Out of interest - I bought myself a new Sharp 68XK5 68cm TV about 2
years ago - on the carton I was surprised to see it said that the set
was "made in australia", so someone must still be running a TV
manufacturing facility here. How much of the set is actually made or
assembled here is another matter altogether too. Anyway the set
performs quite well, hasnt given any problems and Im quite happy with
it. (The quality of australian TV programming generally is another
matter altogether though

Other than gaming gear - AWA was still making things such as traffic
lights etc for some time. They might not be today though.

 

[Phil Allison]

"KLR" <kreed@bigpond.net.au>

I don't think AWA has manufactured its own TV's here since the time
Colour came along.

** They imported a Thorn CTV chassis from the UK in 1976 - put an iso
tranny inside IIRC - called it AWA-Thorn.

Out of interest - I bought myself a new Sharp 68XK5 68cm TV about 2
years ago - on the carton I was surprised to see it said that the set
was "made in australia", so someone must still be running a TV
manufacturing facility here.

** That is very hard to believe.




............. Phil

 

[Defibrillator]

Out of interest - I bought myself a new Sharp 68XK5 68cm TV about 2
years ago - on the carton I was surprised to see it said that the set
was "made in australia", so someone must still be running a TV
manufacturing facility here. How much of the set is actually made or
assembled here is another matter altogether too. Anyway the set
performs quite well, hasnt given any problems and Im quite happy with
it. (The quality of australian TV programming generally is another
matter altogether though

I believe NEC also do or have manufactured TVs in Australia. Whether it was
full assembly or a token "import major assemblies and screw them together
here" I don't know.

 

[KoRRupT]

"Jeff" <noflames@flame.org> wrote in message
news:3f55f9d2_1@news.iprimus.com.au...

These are all old brands and was wondering whats going on? A chinese
outfit
with a licence to badge old brandnames on their crap? The TV's look ok but

....to quote Lev from Armageddon..."American components... Russian
components... all made in TAIWAN!"

 

[David L. Jones]

"Jeff" <noflames@flame.org> wrote in message news:<3f55f9d2_1@news.iprimus.com.au>...

Hi all,

I was just down at big-w tonight and noticed some AWA badged TV's recently
for sale. Ive also noticed some RCA and Magnavox TV's for sale as well.
These are all old brands and was wondering whats going on? A chinese outfit
with a licence to badge old brandnames on their crap? The TV's look ok but
nothing spectacular.

Also whats happened with regard to AWA? Is it dead? I remember reading in
the financial columns that they are just fixing the pokies these days at the
casino's? And I also read that AWADI was bought by BAE Systems........

With no major australian owned consumer electronics business in this
country.... what a sorry tale our high-tech industry is....

Jeff

Panasonic still make all of their large screen and projection TVs
locally at Penrith in western Sydney. Or at least they did when I was
there about two years ago. They exported many of them too. I was told
a new TV went out the door every 49 seconds or something like that -
amazing.

Regards
Dave

 

[The real Andy]

"Defibrillator" <nospam@for.me> wrote in message
news:h3w5b.81597$bo1.44228@news-server.bigpond.net.au...

Out of interest - I bought myself a new Sharp 68XK5 68cm TV about 2
years ago - on the carton I was surprised to see it said that the set
was "made in australia", so someone must still be running a TV
manufacturing facility here. How much of the set is actually made or
assembled here is another matter altogether too. Anyway the set
performs quite well, hasnt given any problems and Im quite happy with
it. (The quality of australian TV programming generally is another
matter altogether though


I believe NEC also do or have manufactured TVs in Australia. Whether it
was
full assembly or a token "import major assemblies and screw them together
here" I don't know.

Add Palsonic and Panasonic. I've had custom RGB TV's made by Panasonic here
in Aus. All parts bought overseas, assembled in AU. I believe you can reduce
import tarrifs if you assemble locally. Same in other countries. I have also
had stuff made in Taiwan but had the complete product assembled in China to
reduce the tarrifs in china.