GN hearing business being sold to Amplfon

How does this inform that choice?

I can’t see how this will be good for ReSound HAs, I wonder how this will affect Jabra and Costco? Plus even DIY projects, as it’s known Amplifon like to “lock” their rebranded models.

@anytrams56 said:

I would be concerned about support down the road.

Yeah definitely, especially as the way Amplifon is paying for all of this, they are so heavily in debt already, borrowing a lot more to finance this deal, the board of directors at GN will be rubbing their hands with a lot of back slapping!

From the past experience with Phonak I think it’s pretty clear that if Costco starts having issues with the Jabras they will drop them. On the good side, at least with Phonak they did a good job of continuing to provide customer support for them.

In my opinion, this is not good news. You want a HA company to be 100% into hearing aids and not factor in other stuff that the holding company might consider more important. I personally feel that when the Sivantos Group bought Widex, the change in management totally screwed up Widex, big time. Ten to fifteen years ago, Widex was a very strong competitor to Phonak. Now it’s half the company it used to be and a distant challenger to Phonak. So long, Resound - We hardly knew ya.

I think it’ll be business as usual for now, what happens in the future who knows.

Another L for amplifon SMH

@MDB

Uh, oh, that is terrible news!!! I have no idea what this means for Jabra aids, etc. (which I just bought last year). But . . . I had HA insurance for 2 years through Amplifon through my husband’s job, and it was the cause of my not getting aids for 2 years!!

The problem was that they paid audiologists so little that it wasn’t really worth their while to do so. As a I result, I tried twice to get aids through the insurance and got nowhere.

Many audi offices that I called said that they no longer provided aids through Amplifon because it didn’t pay to do so.

Another Audi I had an appointment with, she simply picked up a pair of Signa aids, and said, “I like these,” and I was considering buying them, but I was nonplussed: what, no discussion of choices or what might be good for me in particular?! So I didn’t buy them.

Then the next year, I went to another Audi who took Amplifon, but she told me that I had to pay her $2,500 in addition to what Amplifon paid. She yelled at me when I said something other than simply agreeing! End of that story! Plus, Ampllifon only would allow aids that were a previous iteration, and a version that was less expensive and had fewer features.

So . . really bad news!! And what does that mean for all of us who have the Jabras now?? It’s already been a long haul for me to try to get these optimized so I can begin to hear properly with them. The only possible good news is that I would hope that Costco has the clout to make them honor the terms of the agreement when we bought them. But Amplifon is a sleazy, cheap, horrible company IME.

“From what I understand, the sale includes GN’s full Hearing division, including brands like ReSound, Beltone, Interton, Danavox, Danalogic, and Jabra Enhance only . GN will continue to operate its audio, video, and gaming businesses, including other parts of Jabra.”

@Deaf_piper said:

For Cochlear bimodal CI users this could well be a disaster.

GN Resound has had the contract for HA ‘s with Cochlear for years.

I’m interested to know what will happen to Ci bimodal users now?

Good question. I guess the “disaster” element would be if Amplifon decided at some point that they would only support Amplifon aids in bimodal mode with Cochlear, forcing anyone not using ReSound or Amplifon to switch.

I am perhaps fortunate that my non Cochlear HA was supplied by Amplifon (rebadged ReSound Omnia). I don’t have any complaints about Amplifon, and my audiologist has been excellent.

And to top this off, former CEO Anders Hedegaard is baffled and shocked that GN would even consider a “retail chain” with absolutely no experience with manufacturing in any shape or form! he’s criticized GN board members for this, he actually said he thought they were going with Demant A/S! That’s right, they we’re in talks with a main competitor to take over, and further to this it’s not actually 100% guaranteed that Amplifon will be the owner, seems they have until the end of the year to “stitch it together” and anyone with a better offer could be considered.

@romysanmiguel said:

From what I understand, the sale includes GN’s full Hearing division, including brands like ReSound, Beltone, Interton, Danavox, Danalogic, and Jabra Enhance only .

Yes correct, remember the only difference between those brands is the name… good marketing! I still don’t understand the “gaming” part, do they supply “parts” for PlayStation, Xbox and handheld devices etc?