JL Audio Marine Europe - JL Audio Marine Europe Announces Buoyant 2016 and Continued Growth in Europe

METSTRADE, 15^th to 17^th November, Amsterdam, Stand 01.535 Hall 1

15^th November – Marine Equipment Trade Show, Amsterdam - JL Audio Marine Europe, the European distributor for the US’s leading marine audio systems, JL Audio has announced a sizeable increase in its European sales compared with the same period last year and has outlined its future plans for product development and expansion.

Solid Growth

The UK based company attributes this year’s success to the development of significant new partnerships with boat builders such as Princess, Pascoe International, Wahoo, Stingher and Cobra RIBS, which have helped them to develop the brand in Europe. Since its METS debut in 2014, JL Audio Marine Europe has also built a specialist network of country distributors throughout Europe, which in turn has created sales far exceeding expectations.

JL Audio Marine Europe’s Managing Director, Paul Baker said, “JL Audio Marine dominates the USA yachting market where the builders and owners see the value in high quality, high fidelity marine audio systems. We are now starting to see this appetite for both marine quality and premium audio systems in Europe, particularly in the luxury and superyacht market with more demand for bigger and better systems and less ‘off the shelf’ products. Customers invest in their chosen boat brand so it makes sense for builders to offer the very best performing equipment. Scope for JL Audio Marine Europe’s growth remains high and we are forecasting double digit increases for the next three to five years as more boat builders begin to offer their customers the option for high quality marine audio systems.”

New product

2016 has seen the company’s most significant product launch to date with the introduction of the MediaMaster®100s marine audio source unit. Entering this important product category for the first time, JL Audio is now able to offer an extensive line-up of high quality, marine audio products offering an integrated marine audio solution to boat builders and customers.

Market Trends

“There is a trend within the boating community for an audio experience that exists either at home or in their car therefore the trend we have observed is twofold,” says Paul Baker. “Boat builders are now specifying high quality audio systems as part of their standard build programme and existing boat owners are looking to upgrade what they already have. The upgrade is normally centred on speaker replacement and the addition of an amplifier plus woofer to deliver outstanding bass. There is an enormous difference between listening to music and ‘feeling’ the music. We have found that many of our customers already have home entertainment systems and working with JL Audio they can now experience a similar experience when one of our systems is installed in their boat. The integration of audio into NMEA has also become a recent trend – however many of our customers like the NMEA integration but boaters enjoy the ability to directly access the audio via its own source unit.”

The introduction of high quality audio, such as JL Audio’s, has brought a home theatre experience to the consumer thanks to technical developments in new speaker and subwoofer materials that are better able to withstand the harsh marine environment and reproduce sound after several years of installation like the day the system was installed.

Looking forward

In recent years there has been a rapid emergence of new technology in the yachting market and the acceptance of technology has provided many interesting opportunities for JL Audio. “Perhaps we will see within Europe at some stage the development of a system similar to the USA based Sirius XM Radio where radio reception works 200 miles offshore. If the demand is there then I am certain the solution providers will be there too. In the meantime, JL Audio will continue to develop its range of marine audio entertainment products to address the needs of the marine market and 2017 promises to be another good year for product development.”

JL Audio Marine Europe has confirmed that they will be holding their prices for 2017, continuing to offer customers good value for money on its premium marine audio systems. The company will continue to invest in marketing to the European market and addressing open territories to push the brand.

ENDS

For further information, please contact:

Paul Baker

JL Audio Marine Europe

Tel: +44 (0)1202 664 390

paul.baker@jlaudiomarine.eu

www.jlaudiomarine.eu

or

Karen Bartlett

Saltwater Stone

Tel: +44 (0)1202 669244

k.bartlett@saltwater-stone.com

www.saltwater-stone.com