UMC and SHARP to reinforce collaboration

Universal Media Corporation (UMC) announces today that it intends to extend its brand license agreement with SHARP, a leading Consumer Electronics company, on a long term basis and further reinforce the collaboration, aiming to jointly invest in product development and marketing.

Key Facts

• UMC creates new structures for a comeback of the SHARP brand
• IFA 2016 marks kick-off for re-alignment
• Hans Wienands, formerly with Samsung, is Executive Advisor
• Sascha Lange is named Vice President Marketing & Sales
• Sabine Pannik starts Sept. 1 as new Sales Director CEE

Berlin, September 1, 2016 – UMC and SHARP share a goal to grow their TV business in the European market under the SHARP brand in the coming years. The combination of UMC’s longstanding expertise in developing, producing and distributing electronic goods for the European market, and SHARP’s competency in delivering innovations and high-quality products will continue to significantly improve SHARP´s position in this market. Moving forward, UMC is planning to enhance its collaboration with SHARP´s display division to provide best-in-class product quality and introduce innovative panel designs under the SHARP brand. However, the collaboration is not limited to television sets, but entails various other kinds of electronic goods including audio and other equipment in the future.

This move will see UMC building up a marketing team, which will be responsible for maintaining the brand’s values and increasing awareness of its products and technologies. UMC will also strengthen its sales force to cover all European territories and sales channels, and to establish a product innovation initiative to be able to provide quality products from entry to high-end level.

On August 1st, a new European Marketing organisation was established to cover brand management, campaign management, public relations, channel marketing and online marketing. UMC tripled its exhibition space at the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) 2016 to ensure sufficient space for its display of an extensive array of line-ups, technologies, and innovations.

Moreover, the marketing organisation will establish a product innovation initiative to enable the provision of high-quality products from entry to high-end price points. The product innovation initiative combines UMC’s engineering expertise with the skills of its strategic partners such as Sharp, which for its part provides excellence in television technology. Harman Kardon® was chosen as the partner for the TV’s sound solutions. The audio specialist developed seven different sound systems to fit the different TV-screen sizes and price positions. As a result, all Sharp TVs starting from 32 inches will be equipped with Harman Kardon® speakers to offer best-in-class sound performance from entry to high-end models.

To cope with the rapid development and manifold changes, UMC will expand its executive and senior management team with seasoned figureheads of the Consumer Electronics industry:

– Hans Wienands; Executive Advisor; since August 12th, former Executive Vice President at Samsung Electronics
– Sascha Lange; Vice President Marketing and Sales; since August 1st; former Business Unit Director CE at Toshiba
– Sabine Pannik, Sales Director CEE, since September 1st, former General Manager Sales and Marketing CEE at JVC-Kenwood

IFA 2016 will mark the kick-off date for UMC to revitalize the SHARP brand, the pioneer in Global Flat-TV business, to a top tier position in the European TV market.

PDF: UMC_Strategy-ENG.pdf

Press contact:
Alexander Siegmund
Creation, CMGRP Deutschland GmbH
Tel.: +49 (0) 89 54 30 22 62
E-Mail ASiegmund@creation.io