Flat world vibrations: A study of Audio Partnership

When asked to identify good quality hi-fi brands, most Britishers are likely to pick mass-market Japanese brands such as Sony or Panasonic. It would be news to them that British hi-fi brands are at the top of the tree when it comes to audiophile cognoscenti around the world. One company that has taken advantage of the high standing of British brands in international markets is Audio Partnership, a medium-sized British electronics firm that is attempting to exploit globalisation’s opportunities in its march for growth. M Institute co-founder Jyoti Banerjee investigates.

It was in the 1990s that Audio Partnership realised that although British hi-fi companies were being beaten by the Far East when it came to low-cost manufacture, their reputation was built largely on good design and excellent sound quality. The company took over struggling British brands such as Cambridge Audio and Mordaunt-Short, strengthened their design prowess but outsourced all manufacturing to China – possibly the first Western audio company to do so. Plus, they built strong marketing campaigns that enabled them to sell these British-designed products across the world.

Today the company reports annual revenues in the region of £25 million with 60 employees in the UK and a number of strong relationships with Chinese electronics manufacturers. Although the audio market world-wide is in steady-state mode – it is flat screen TVs and iPods that are the growth engines in consumer electronics – Audio Partnership is still able to grow at a consistent rate because of market concentration in traditional audio markets where its combination of British design and Chinese manufacture is proving to be a winner, and because of entry into new international markets, where traditional British audio companies never trod.