Nordmende
NordMende originally from Bremen in Germany is now manufactured under licence and is available in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Italy. The brand is renowned for high quality televisions and major domestic appliances.
History
The original company, Radio H. Mende & Co, was founded in 1923 by Otto Hermann Mende (1885-1940) in Dresden. Following the destruction of the plant during the bombing raids in 1945, Martin Mende (the founder's son) created a new company in Bremen in 1947, in a former Focke-Wulf plant, under the name North German Mende Broadcast GmbH. The name was subsequently changed to NordMende: subsequently the company became one of the prominent German manufacturers of radios, televisions, tape recorders and record players in the 1950s and 1960s.
In the 1970s, NordMende televisions were renowned for their innovative chassis, and for the rigorous testing and quality control of their finished products. Both created high costs, however, which soon proved a competitive disadvantage when the price of colour televisions began to plunge.
In 1969, Mende's sons took over the company, and in 1977 a majority shareholding was sold to the French Thomson Brandt company. The following year, the family sold their remaining shares to Thomson. In the 1980s, the factories in Bremen were closed, NordMende becoming purely a Thomson trademark.
In the 1990s, the name NordMende was used with decreasing frequency, and it eventually disappeared in favour of the Thomson name. In 2005 Videocon Group acquired all cathode ray tube activities from Thomson. This led to the creation of VDC Technologies, which manufactures TV sets using the NordMende brand under licence from Thomson.
The NordMende brand name was relaunched in Ireland in September 2008 by the KAL Group. Although NordMende was well known for its televisions throughout Ireland during the 1970s and 1980s, the company bought the rights to the name and launched a range of white goods including fridges, freezers, washing machines, and dishwashers, alongside a revamped range of flat-screen TVs and stereos.