In an announcement that shocked dealers, Dynaudio announced today that it intends to exit the North American market and shift its priorities to other global markets offering “the strongest strategic opportunities.” With this decision, the company will be permanently closing its U.S. subsidiary sometime in the “fall of 2026.”
Learn more about Dynaudio exiting the North American market…
Today, Dynaudio A/S, a maker of premium audio gear, astounded its dealers by announcing its decision, “after careful consideration,” to cease operations in North America. Actually, yesterday the company began a quiet internal notification to a select group of “partners and friends.” That notification included a letter from Julien Bergére, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of Dynaudio, who sought to explain the decision.
Dynaudio is a Danish company founded in 1977 and based in Skanderborg, Denmark. In 2014, the company was acquired by Goertek, a Chinese acoustic components company.
A Shocking Announcement
In its shocking announcement, the company noted that this decision was not due to poor sales. Rather, “…the company has achieved sales growth in North America in recent years…”
So if business is good, why exit the N.A. market? Dynaudio’s CCO would only portray the answer to that question in vague terms. He said in his note, “…ongoing economic challenges and market uncertainty have led Dynaudio to prioritize investments and resources in markets that offer the strongest strategic opportunities for future development.”
New Focus on ‘The Strongest Strategic Opportunities’
Bergére specifically cited Europe and Asia as two of the major markets where it will focus its future growth investments. It seems surprising the company suggests those are markets with “the strongest strategic opportunities. However, we don’t know if the company is suggesting these markets have greater economic opportunities, or rather offer them greater market share opportunities based on the existing competitive profile there.
With the United States being the largest economy in the world – at least at the moment – it is hard to imagine larger opportunities exist elsewhere.
Promises ‘A Smooth Transition’
Dynaudio says reassuringly that it is “committed to ensuring a smooth transition for customers and business partners.” It says the company has a plan to maintain continuity of product support and customer service. More details on these plans will be shared soon.
In a letter accompanying the company release, Dynaudio U.S. President Michael Manousselis said he was sharing this news “with great sadness.” He also set the closing of Dynaudio’s U.S. facility in Northbrook, Illinois, at the end of September 2026. That’s just a little over two months from now.
Information Forthcoming on Parts and Service Support
Here in the U.S., the company will continue to accept orders through the end of August. Like the main company announcement, Manousselis assured dealers that information would be released soon on the ongoing plans for parts and service support.
Dynaudio is a manufacturer of premium quality audio products serving the residential, professional, and car Hi-Fi markets. It is already distributed in markets around the world. Its professional line is said to be employed in more than 10,000 recording studios globally.
Dealers Completely Blindsided
One dealer I spoke with was completely blindsided by the news. His business with the brand has continued strong, and he has outstanding projects in his pipeline employing Dynaudio products. He said that, up to now, there were no signs whatsoever of business issues with the company.
I have also heard some conjecture that there may be a political element to this decision. Clearly, ever since April 2025, tariffs have had a big impact on manufacturers’ profits. But also, unique to Danish companies, you have the Trump administration’s pronouncements that it should be running Greenland. This has created substantial tension and had a big impact on U.S./Denmark relations.
For More Information
There is no way to know for sure if these political elements are, in fact, the motivation for the company to make this move. It could be a coincidence.
See more on Dynaudio at dynaudio.com.
Trump has made doing business in the U.S for international brands tricky. Tariffs, threats of more tariffs and tariffs on top of tariffs if he doesn’t get his way is quite frankly a joke. I don’t blame them concentrating on China and emerging markets at this point, where doing business is more consistent and potentially more profitable.
Market uncertainty caused by tariffs and Greenland?
Why wouldn’t they simply hire a full-service U.S. distributor, or maybe one distributor for PRO and one for Consumer? And align with a service center for repairs (there are dozens in the USA that could do this). We do this in every country outside of N. America. Unless there’s some compelling fiscal or political reason to simply close a huge market, the decision doesn’t make sense. If they were a public company, the shareholders would be demanding answers.
John, this is an absolutely great point. Several dealers asked me the exact same thing. I don’t know the answer.
It does seem odd.
It’s the uncertainty caused by Trump use of tariffs. Whether you go through a distributor or direct, it’s impossible to write a business plan when prices can move at the whim of the President.
As a former sales rep in audio products . Doing business in the US is not that easy , altough the size of the market is large , high end audio is only a small percentage of the electronics sales .
Canada altough only 1/10 of the population of the US was equal or better for some brands in that type of products . Tarifs and other political stance clearly make the US not desirable these days .
Thanks for contributing Gaetan. You offer an interesting perspective…
Ted
The US is a tough market for Hifi. The market is relatively smaller than Europe and Asia based on the overall size of the economy, and the typical distributor/dealer margin requirements eat up much more of the sale price in the US. than in Europe. Dynaudio also never built a strong brand in the US, and it is an uphill battle for a shrinking market that they probably calculated is not worth fighting.
Great points, Mike. It’s true that the U.S. is typically a lower margin market. Largely, this is due to heightened competition and desire to drive sales. The low margin factor, though is offset by higher volume.
At least that is true for most products. In some select categories, Europe (more than Asia, in my experience) can be higher volume than U.S., but in limited instances.
Going back to my days heading Onkyo USA, at that time, the only category Europe outsold the U.S. in was integrated amplifiers. This was mostly due to market preferences. And also, market structure, as in Europe, most electronics were sold thru small specialty dealers. In the U.S., the market was heavily impacted by larger scale regional and national players.
However, Onkyo, like most global brands calculated costs and returns globally. So, again in my situation, Onkyo USA’s much larger volume dramatically lowered the cost of product manufacturing of all products, driving up profits globally as well.
So, it’s a balance…and you have to be good at math…and forecasting.
In the case of Dynaudio, I don’t have enough data to know the underpinnings of this decision. However, I will make one comment.
Dynaudio dealers tell me that the company has never changed pricing since the Trump Administration launched the global trade war with increased tariffs. It appears the company is eating the cost of the tariffs. That alone must be dramatically impacting – if not wiping out completely – profits in the U.S. market.
That is a Dynaudio management decision as almost all brands in our industry offset or mitigated tariffs by increasing market prices. Dynaudio could have easily, and reasonably, raised their prices as well.
Perhaps there were other factors as well…
Thanks for contributing, Mike!
Ted