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Endpoint: Braun



45:49
Videos (4)
created on: 2/06/2025
by: bob (10003)
 
 

Brand properties

General info :
Braun is the brand name used by Braun GmbH, a German consumer products company founded in 1921 and based in Kronberg im Taunus, Hesse.
The company is known for its design aesthetic from the 1960s through the 1980s. It has manufactured a wide assortment of products ranging from electric shavers and personal care devices to radiograms and record players, movie cameras, slide projectors, clocks, and small kitchen appliances, for which "Braun became shorthand for reliable, no-nonsense modernist goods."

In 1921, Max Braun (1890–1951), a mechanical engineer, established a small engineering shop in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1923, he began producing components for radio sets.
In 1929, eight years after he started his shop, Max Braun began to manufacture entire radio sets, and his company eventually became one of Germany's leading radio manufacturers. This development continued with the launch of one of the first combined radio and record players, called radiograms, in 1932.
In 1935, the Braun brand was introduced, and the original incarnation of the logotype with the raised "A" was born.
After the war, Braun continued to produce state-of-the-art radios and audio equipment, and the company soon became well known for its "high-fidelity" audio and record players, including the famous SK line. Braun was the only foreign licensee of the QUAD electrostatic loudspeaker for a time. In 1954, the company also began producing film slide projectors, a mainstay of its business for the next forty years.
The 1950s also marked the beginning of the product that Braun is known for today: the electric shaver. Braun's first electric shaver, known as the S 50, was designed in 1938, but World War II delayed its introduction until 1951.
The 1950s also saw the start of kitchen appliances, like the mixer MX 3 and the kitchen machine (Küchenmaschine or kitchen machine) Braun KM 3. The KM 3 is a family of food processors that started with the model KM 3/31 in 1957. Designed by Gerd A. Müller, these machines were built in nearly unchanged form for 36 years until 1993.
In 1962, Braun became Braun AG, a publicly traded company. In 1963, the company started distributing microphones by U.S. manufacturer Shure in Germany. Also during the 1960s, Braun created the Rams-designed T3 pocket radio.

By the 1970s, Braun discontinued its film slide projectors and hi-fi products to focus on consumer appliances such as shavers, razors, coffee makers, clocks, and radios. In 1981, the company's audio and hi-fidelity division, which grew out of Braun's former core business of radios, turntables, and hi-fidelity audio products, was spun off into Braun Electronic GmbH, a legally independent Gillette subsidiary. Braun Electronic GmbH put out its last audio-fi set in 1990 before the business was discontinued. Also, in the early 1980s, Braun sold its photographic and slide projector division to Robert Bosch GmbH.

In 1982, Gillette Group moved to integrate Braun with the parent company by taking full control over its operations. In 1984, Braun ceased the production of cigarette lighters. That same year, Braun became a wholly owned subsidiary of Gillette.
By the mid-1990s, Braun held a leading position among the world's home appliance manufacturers, but profitability concerns began to surface. Many of Braun's competitors closely imitated Braun designs and had them produced in low-cost labor countries at lower costs.

In 1998, Gillette decided to transform Braun AG into a private company before it bought back a 19.9 percent share in its subsidiary The Gillette Company, Inc., which Braun had acquired in 1988. The following year, Braun's sales organization was merged with those of Gillette's other business divisions to cut costs. At the end of the 1990s, Braun and Gillette suffered losses in several areas. Looking for ways to return to profitability, Gillette considered the disposal of some of Braun's less profitable divisions, such as kitchen appliances and thermometers, but abandoned the idea a few months later when no buyers were found. Braun's sales in those areas began to recover in 2000.

Gillette was acquired by Procter & Gamble in 2005, making Braun a wholly owned subsidiary of P&G. In 2006 Procter & Gamble sold Braun's Health Products division to Kaz, now a subsidiary of Helen of Troy Limited, along with licensing the use of Braun's trademark in the specific health products market.
In early 2008, P&G discontinued sales of Braun appliances, except certain appliances such as shavers and electric toothbrushes, in the United States market.
Elsewhere, however, Braun kept selling all its core categories until 2012, when the Braun product line relating to kitchen appliances was purchased by De'Longhi, using the Braun trademark under license from P&G.
Relations :
Founded by : Max Braun
This endpoint is new to the database, please check he (it) is not in with a similar endpoint name association (and use the ENA function if necessary).
Brand name used by : Braun GmbH
This endpoint is new to the database, please check he (it) is not in with a similar endpoint name association (and use the ENA function if necessary).
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ENA's

Magazines

(4 items)

Item number : 69562

Submitted by : bob (10003)
on : 02/06/2025