Infotainment
We primarily sell our infotainment systems directly to automobile manufacturers
in the U.S., Europe, India, Japan, China and South Korea, where they are installed
as original equipment.
Lifestyle
We primarily sell our Lifestyle automotive audio systems directly to automobile
manufacturers in the U.S., Europe, India, Japan, China and South Korea, where
they are installed as original equipment. In both our foreign and domestic markets,
we sell our Lifestyle home audio products to dealers who sell directly to the
end user and to distributors who resell our products to retailers. We market
our products as one brand to the ultimate consumer who chooses what brand of
sound system to purchase for their home or their automobile. Our goal is to
make Harman brands the preferred brand in both home and automotive audio applications.
Home, multimedia and mobile aftermarket products are offered through audio
specialty stores, discount stores, department stores, mail order firms, Internet
merchants and our website www.harmanaudio.com. Automotive and computer manufacturers
also offer branded audio products as options. We concentrate primarily on the
higher quality, higher priced segments of the audio market and compete based
upon the strength of our brand names, the quality of our products, our ability
to provide integrated systems and our comprehensive marketing, engineering and
manufacturing resources.
Professional
In the U.S. we primarily sell our Professional products to dealers via manufacturer’s
representatives. Outside the U.S. we sell directly to distributors. Manufacturer’s
representatives are paid sales agents and distributors buy and hold the inventory
and sell directly to dealers in their markets. Both manufacturer’s representatives
and distributors have a defined geographic region. In the broadcast and recording
market, we primarily solicit business directly with the end users. We also sell
our Professional products in retail stores and direct to customers over the
Internet. For lighting solutions, we sell directly to the end user in the U.S.
and most of Europe. In other countries, our lighting solutions are sold through
a distributor network. These distributors deal with either end users or other
dealers within their own markets.
