A Man and his Penguin

It’s a sad day for consumers, it’s a sad day for retailers. Hitachi Australia has announced that it’s closing its doors.

This is a real surprise to me, as I can think of a number of other brands that I’d expect to leave first. I thought Hitachi was doing alright.

Luckily we never dealt much with Hitachi - we only got in two Hitachi plasmas, both of which sucked, and we have sold some of their fridges. The wording of the announcement actually isn’t clear if just the consumer electronics side is closing, or if it’s the whole kit and kaboodle (including home appliances).

In any case, I feel very sorry for the staff who would be laid off, as well as anxiety about warranty issues. Lets hope Hitachi does keep service happening for the next 5 years. Now that Centrex has gone bust, people’s Centrex aircons have been breaking down just months before the end of warranty, and guess who is their first port of call?

I also feel anxiety about NEC and Sharp. Consumers simply are not asking for NEC or Sharp, and pricing can sometimes be out of whack compared to their competitors. Sharp’s LCDs are very reasonably priced, though. We’ll have to keep an eye on both of those companies, as I think Sharp has made it clear that they’re afraid this will happen to them too.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 3:15 am and is filed under Web/Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.