It looks like the economic downturn is beginning to claim some well-known scalps this week.

It start on Monday when Creative Labs announced it was shutting down its Australian arm and retreating back to Singapore to run its Asia-Pacific operations.

Bernard Koh, Country Manager, ANZ, Creative Labs said: “Like most businesses today, we have been monitoring and analysing the market   situation closely and have taken steps in advance to streamline our sales distribution model to better compete in the market. We believe that by changing our business model flexibly, we will better serve our customers and partners.”

Creative Labs will rely on local distributors such as Altech Computers, which has since also been chosen as its NZ distributor, to handle its logistics.

Meanwhile, today, Japanese giant NEC announced it was closing down the retail arm of its Australian setup and focusing its attention on its business er… business. So as of 1 March 2009, they’ll be no more NEC TVs, fridges, whitegoods, appliances or home entertainment gear.

Not sure if they’re planning a fire sale of what’s left but it doesn’t affect NEC’s data projector or digital signage divisions, which are apparently going to carry on as normal.

These two aren’t the first and I imagine they won’t be the last but what it does do is continue the concentration of the market, reducing the number of brands and increasing the market share of the stayers.

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