Finlux

Finlux was a Finnish brand of consumer electronics, estabilished in Lohja, Finland in 1971, originally part of the Oy Lohja AB industrial group, then in the 1990s acquired by the electronics giant Nokia, and actually only a brand name used by Turkish manufacturer Vestel for a line of consumer electronic related products, including flatscreen LED TVs and home cinema audio products.

History


The origins of Finlux were in the Iskumetalli Oy company in Lohja, producer of industrial pumps, that in 1948 started to produce tube radio receivers under license from the swedish company Luxor and in 1958 the first television receivers. In 1964, Iskumetalli was incorporated in the Lohja industrial group, and in 1971, the Luxor license agreement expired and was officially introduced the Finlux brand, which was a blend word of "Finlandia" and "Luxor"; this was the first time that Finlux had been used as a company name. In 1972, Finlux unveiled his first colour TV set, called Finlux Peacock, developed by engineer Martti Ahava, which in 1974 was joined by the Colibri model.

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

In 1978, Finlux introduced the Finlux OBC (Optimum Brightness Contrast) line of colour TVs, developed by engineer Heikki Tupala, which was one of the most successful products of the Finnish company.

In 1979, Lohja acquired another Finnish TV manufacturer, Asa Radio Oy in Turku, which had been manufacturing radio receivers and TV sets since 1927. At that time the consumer electronics division of the Lohja group produced annually 170.000 TV sets with the Finlux and ASA brand names.

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.

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 the year 2000, when the Finnish subsidiary of Semi-Tech filed for bankruptcy.

A new company under the Finlux Oy 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 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 Vestel, owned by the Zorlu Holding 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 1988, with the unfortunate consequence that the brand name still appears on footage from the Hillsborough disaster.