EXCLUSIVE: Several big name consumer electronics brands including Hitachi TVs and Nakamichi sound systems are to be sold in Australia with retailers like Harvey Norman rubbing their hands with glee at the margin potential.The only problem is that the high profile products whose brand names are well known are not being made and sold by Hitachi or Nakamichi but by Tempo, an Australian Company that has already fallen foul of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the NSW Office of Fair Trading for past product failures.
A senior executive of a major consumer electronics Company who for many years was a senior executive at Panasonic said “This is a dangerous trend. For all intends and purposes a consumer walking into a retail store is going to think that they are buying a Hitachi TV. They are not. What they will find if they properly investigate the product is that they are being sold a low cost TV made in a Chinese factory by a Company that is peddling products using a brand name they have purchased”.
“Retailers love it because they can sell a product branded as Hitachi knowing that they have a lot of margin in the product. Consumers don’t know the difference. They think they are getting a TV made by the Japanese Company Hitachi who has an excellent reputation in Australia. All they have to do is look at the TV manual and what they will discover is Chinese symbols and information that has been translated into English using something like Google Translate”.
“We don’t sell TVs but this is a dangerous trend as it could tantamount to misleading consumers as the components are not the same quality as prior Hitachi TV’s”.
A spokesperson for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said “We are aware of Tempo as we have had dealings with them before. We cannot do anything until we have an official complaint”.
Links on the ACCC web site that reveal that Tempo, whose web site consists of a single page has in the past been forced to remove faulty products from sale in Australia. (See link here).
Two years ago Hitachi exited the Australian market in controversial circumstances, after questions were raised about the level of high definition technology integrated into their flat panel TV’s.
Hitachi got themselves into trouble with Australia’s largest CE retailer Harvey Norman following the running of advertising that claims that their 50″ plasma TV’s were full HD when in fact they were only able to deliver 1080i which industry experts at the time claimed were not the same as Full HD which runs at 1080p.
This resulted in Harvey Norman forcing the Company to take back stock.
Our calls to Tempo Australia were not returned.
Unlike Sony who use third party manufacturers to make their Bravia TV’s the quality and design of the products are controlled by Sony. In the case of the Hitachi TV’s that are set to reappear in Australian stores none of the processesare controlled by thge Japanese Company Hitachi.
Tempo is a low cost manufacturer of budget products made in China.
