Vertu
| Vertu
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1998 |
| Seat | Hampshire , UK |
| management | Gordon Watson ( CEO ) |
| Number of employees | 1029 |
| sales | € 276 million (2012) |
| Branch | Mobile phone manufacturer |
| Website | www.vertu.com |
Vertu is a bankrupt manufacturer of luxury cell phones . The company was founded by Nokia in 1998 and sold in October 2012 to the Swedish financial investor EQT , who sold the company in November 2015 to the Chinese Godin Holdings, based in Hong Kong, which in turn sold the company to Paris businessman Hakan Uzan in 2017 . In the same year, the company went into voluntary liquidation and closed its production facility. Vertu was headquartered in Hampshire , England . Regional offices were located in New York , Singapore and Hong Kong . The brand is continued by Hakan Uzan's Vertu AK France .
history
In 1995 Frank Nuovo had the idea of starting a luxury mobile phone manufacturer. After initial discussions in 1997 with the technology partner Nokia, Vertu was founded in 1998 as its initially independent subsidiary. Frank Nuovo was then chief designer at Vertu. After around five years of development work, the first “Signature” collection was presented to the public in 2002. In the same year, Vertu products were launched in Europe, first on Rue Royale in Paris.
In 2015 the company was sold to a Hong Kong holding company, which in turn sold it to Paris businessman Hakan Uzan in March 2017. In July 2017, the shareholders filed for bankruptcy protection. The company went into voluntary liquidation after plans to rescue it failed. The 200 remaining employees lost their pay. On July 13, 2017, the Financial Times reported that Vertu had to close its manufacturing facility due to financial problems. This was preceded by various changes of ownership with non-transparent cash flows. Concierge services were discontinued in 2017. In 2018, a new device was released with the Aster P, but it could only be ordered in China. The former production facility in England was demolished in May 2020.
Products
The manufacturer's collections are called “Signature”, “Constellation”, “Ascent” and “Vertu Ti”; In addition, there were collaborations with, among others, Ferrari and the Boucheron jeweler. Vertu uses materials such as gold, platinum, liquid metal , diamonds, ceramic and carbon in its devices . Limited editions are presented for most of the collections.
Technically, Vertu's products were rated as mediocre or even outdated. Wired called the Vertu products "tasteless garbage" ( " tasteless trash" )
A top product in the product family was the Vertu Ti , which was presented in February 2013. The Android smartphone has 64 gigabytes of internal memory, an 8 megapixel camera, a 1.3 megapixel front camera and a 3.7 inch LC display with multi-touch capability . The ringtones and alarm tones were recorded exclusively by the London Symphony Orchestra. The sound system was developed in collaboration with Bang & Olufsen .
A special feature of the Vertu handsets was the so-called “ Concierge Service ”, through which Vertu customers could get support around the clock by helping them with individual requests. It can e.g. B. Hotels booked, holidays organized or invitations to a variety of private clubs and exclusive events offered.
Production and sales
The Vertu phones were entirely handcrafted in Church Crookham, a manufacturing facility that had been vacant since 2017 and demolished in 2020. They were sold worldwide, partly in own boutiques, partly through multi-brand stores. Vertu opened its first own boutique in Germany in November 2008 in Munich's Maximilianstrasse . There were around 30 boutiques in Germany that sold Vertu products, including in major cities such as Berlin ( KaDeWe ), Bremen, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Cologne and Stuttgart.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Richard Lai: Vertu's sudden CEO swap spells trouble after Chinese buyout. Is the acquisition working out for this luxury phone maker? Engadget, February 9, 2016, accessed on March 6, 2016 .
- ↑ a b c Portfolio Companies - Current Portfolio - Vertu . Retrieved September 23, 2013.
- ^ Stephan von Voithenberg: Noble mobile phone manufacturer Vertu goes Chinese. Telecom Handel, November 3, 2015, accessed March 6, 2016 .
- ↑ a b Chris Baraniuk: Luxury phone maker Vertu collapses . In: BBC News . July 13, 2017 ( bbc.com [accessed May 30, 2020]).
- ↑ a b c Vertu factory in the UK demolished to make space for supermarket. In: Nokiamob. May 4, 2020, accessed May 30, 2020 (American English).
- ↑ Vertu Closes Manufacturing Plant , accessed July 13, 2017
- ↑ Services. In: Vertu. Retrieved May 31, 2020 (American English): “We have taken the difficult decision to suspend our current Vertu services and focus on developing a completely new, next generation suite of services, exclusively for our customers. We plan to launch these new services from September 2017 and update this page closer to the launch with further information. "
- ↑ Daniel Puschina: New Vertu Aster P: Good price for mediocre hardware. Accessed May 31, 2020 .
- ↑ a b heise online: Vertu Aster P: 4000 euro smartphone with previous year's hardware. Accessed May 31, 2020 .
- ↑ Micah Singleton: Vertu slapped a Bentley logo on a mediocre Android phone and called it new. January 11, 2016, accessed June 2, 2020 .
- ↑ Rob Beschizza: Eight Things We Pretend to Care About, But Do not. In: Wired . March 19, 2008, ISSN 1059-1028 ( wired.com [accessed June 2, 2020]).
- ^ Vertu Ti , accessed September 2, 2013
- ↑ Vertu: Search page for boutiques and dealers ( Memento of the original from July 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
