As rumors of Onkyo’ s bankruptcy along with Pioneer, keep swirling around the industry and despite local distributor Ambertech struggling to get stock, Company executives are still telling observers that they have a future.
Now as their fiscal year draws to a close on March 31st, the historic Japanese audio firm appears to be breathing new air with speculation that Klipsch owners Vox International has offered some funding.
Last year Onkyo USA delivered distribution to Klipsch (under 11 Trading Company).
This was just part of a plan that included much internal restructuring in both Japan and its global businesses after Sound United who recently acquired Melbourne based distributor Qualifi walked away from investing in the business.
During COVID-19 the Japanese business has suffered from serious supply chain issues.
Also impacting the business was a fire at a Japanese AKM plant that wiped out important digital audio components used in A/V receivers.
Onkyo was declared insolvent but they failed to file for bankruptcy with many who have looked at the books and the debt tipping that this could still happen despite the confidence of management.
In 2020 Onkyo reported a global revenue decline of 49.3% in its fiscal year 2020 with a record net loss of over $90 million.
While the Tokyo Stock Exchange gave Onkyo a limited window of time to get itself together late last year or be delisted from the JASDAQ stock exchange time has now run out with the deadline set at March 31, 2021.
Some believe that with a capital injection Onkyo and Pioneer can survive.
According to Ted Green, a business strategy insights expert and founder of Strata-Gee.com, Onkyo’ s latest plan seemed to be showing positive signs as recently as last November.
Between fiscal Q1 2020 and Q1 2021 the loss in sales between the two quarters were disastrous. It shows that although Onkyo suffered a 70% decline in sales, it still only managed to stop 7.5% of the bleeding.
Surprisingly both Onkyo and its subsidiary Pioneer showed up at this year’s virtual CES event in January 2021 they revealed new receivers with HDMI 2.1, 8K at up to 40Gbps and Dolby Atmos in its lineup.
The problem is funding to manufacture these new products.
Onkyo’ s new line also includes the TX-RZ50 a 7.2.2-channel receiver with seven HDMI inputs and two out, which will retail for US$1099.
Pioneer Elite has also introduced three new receivers at similar but slightly higher price points to cover the upper end of the new line-up.
