Struggling to compete in the consumer audio market, european headphone brand Jabra is pulling out of consumer retailers with retrenchments tipped in coming weeks.
The move comes after consumers shunned the pricey Jabra buds and headphones for products from the likes of Bose, Apple, Beats, Sony and JBL with the brand cutting back recently on ranging in Australia.
GN Store Nord A/S, the Danish parent company of Jabra announced overnight that it will “gradually wind-down” Jabra’s Elite and Talk product lines. At this stage it’s not know what the losses were at for GN Store in the consumer side of their business.
That includes most of the wireless earbuds and headsets currently sold by Jabra via the likes of JB Hi Fi and Harvey Norman.
The business is still going to compete in the B2b market.
What’s not known is whether the move will also affect their SteelSeries and Beltone headphones which is also owned by GN Store Nord.
Announcing their exit GN management claimed “the investment required for future innovation and growth in this very competitive space is deemed unjustified in the long-term given associated risks. The Talk product line follows a similar logic and is positioned in the declining mono Bluetooth market. Consequently, following a thorough business review the decision has been taken to gradually wind-down both the Elite and Talk product lines.”
According to analysts the problem with the business was poor marketing and their lack of manufacturing volumes similar to their competitors.
The APAC market is the biggest consumption market for buds with the region having 37% share based on manufacturing and shipping data.
In Australia the market is dominated by Apple’s AirPods lineup and Beats products, Samsung’s Galaxy Buds are also popular along with JBL and buds.
Jabra who are not known for creative marketing was having to compete up against brands that also included Sony, Sennheiser, and Bose.
Google, and other large tech companies have also tried breaking into the market over the past few years and failed.
The announcement relating to their sudden decision to quit the consumer market came hours after they had announced new Elite 10 Gen 2 and Elite Active Gen 2 wireless earbuds.
They did however confirm that the Elite 10 Gen 2 and Elite Active Gen 2 will be the last Jabra consumer earbuds, but the company plans to “continue to service and support customers for several years.”
The mystery question is why would Jabra announce new buds one minute and then tell consumers they are finished in the consumer audio market?
