Chris Kotis the General Manager of Sales & Marketing at Pioneer Electronics Australia has quit as distributors move to try and get the rights to Pioneer distributed products.
Kotis joins a long list of senior executives who has quit the struggling Japanese Company, who is tipped to be close to exiting the consumer electronics market.
Kotis who joined Pioneer in 2004 is set to take on a senior role at Bosh and Siemens in their appliance division.
During the past four months the Company has seen the exit of Jo. Konstandinou the Pure product Manager and Tony Trent the National Marketing and Product Planning Manager.
Four months ago a leading Australian Distributor was approached by Pioneer Electronics, they were asked to explore the concept of taking over distribution of the Companies consumer electronics product range in both Australia and New Zealand.
Currently Pioneer is attempting to turn itself around from the low point of six years ago, when it shed 10,000 jobs and announced the end of its Kuro high-end plasma TV’s.
Japan’s Nikkei Asian Review reports that Pioneer is in talks with Funai Electric, which makes Philips TVs for the US market and was set to take on the Philips consumer electronics business last year until talks were broken off. Funai is said to be one of several potential buyers for the AV business.
It’s thought the aim is conclude any deal by July – which looks likely to make the 2014 VSX receiver range, and the recently-announced entry-level BDP-170 Blu-ray player, the last Pioneer-made AV products.
The Company will stay in the DJ equipment market as well as the car electronics business, however it is not known whether the Company will retain a subsidiary in Australia to sell their DJ and car electronics business.
One Australian Company who already distributes car after parts for several leading brands has approached Pioneer Electronics in Asia with a view to taking on the Companies product range in Australia.
Another brand that could end up with a new distributor is the Pure AV brand.
Senior executives from UK Company who manufactures the Pure brand were recently in Australia however it is not known whether situation at Pioneer was known to them or whether they met with potential new distributors.
Pure kick-started the digital radio market with the introduction of the EVOKE-1 in 2002, and is now the number one digital radio manufacturer in the world.
In August 2008 Pure launched its first ‘connected’ radio, EVOKE Flow. Acclaimed by several publications as ‘a radio changing’ product.
Pure Australasia Pty Ltd was set up in 2008 to bring the market leading Pure DAB+ and Wi-Fi ‘connected’ radios to Australia and New Zealand, Pioneer Electronics was appointed as the distributor.
Among the Pure product range is the Jongo range of wireless audio products which is sold by several retailers in Australia
Current Pioneer’s car audio and DJ business generates 70 percent of sales, Nikkei reported recently.
Pioneer’s A/V business includes audio components, soundbars, HTiBs, Blu-ray players, networked tabletop speakers, and other home and portable audio products.
Funai currently has relationships in Australia with Tempo and Powermove as Funai manufactures Philips audio products.
Philips previously sold off its TV-manufacturing business to Hong Kong-based TP Vision (TPV) who recently appointed Tempo to distribute their TV range in Australia.