Minneapolis – Flat-screen TV
supplier Element Electronics is teaming up with JBL to offer co-branded TV sets
that use JBL-developed speaker technology to deliver what the company called
“premium-quality sound.”
The company also announced that
it plans in March to being assembling some of its larger screen flat-panel TVs
in a new factory just outside Detroit and will increase the factory’s
production capabilities over the years. Element claimed it would be the only TV
company assembling TVs in the U.S.
Element said it will launch U.S.
assembly because “global economic trends will make American production more
economically viable over time.” The company also said the U.S. factory will
enable the company to “get the right products, at the right price, to the right
place at the right time…” In the short term, the factory will employ about 100
people.
As for its co-brand plans,
Element said JBL drivers in the Element/JBL TVs will “incorporate patented
designs that reduce the size of the speaker while maintaining premium audio
quality” and eliminating a common complaint about poor sound quality in
flat-panel TVs.
Additional details on the
co-branded products were unavailable.
Element offers LCD and LED-LCD
TVs in sizes from 19 inches to more than 50 inches in such outlets as Costco,
Target, QVC, and Walmart, the company’s web site said.
