Kogan brings the $349 Blu-ray player to Australia

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 20 November 2008 08:39

Opinion and Analysis

Pushing the benefits of the “online sales, direct-to-consumer from the factory” model for all its worth, Australian electronics company Kogan is making waves yet again, this time by launching a Blu-ray player at only AUD $349.

Seriously undercutting “bricks and mortar” retail store pricing once more, Australian electronics online retailer Kogan Technologies is putting competitors on notice by promising “the company’s commitment to provide the best consumer electronics at affordable price for all Australians”.

Kogan Technologies’ founder, Ruslan Kogan, said today: “While some of the big name players will be raising prices as the impact of the Australian dollar hits them, Kogan is still in a strong position to sell the most affordable consumer electronics in Australia.”

The statement is especially timely given the news over at Australian Reseller News (ARN) that Acer is set to increase prices by 25% due to the 35%+ drop in the value of the Aussie dollar against the US dollar, which only confirms rumblings I’ve heard from another major electronics manufacturer that prices will rise come January 1, 2009.

How long Kogan can keep its prices low is yet to be seen, but given it uses the old Dell model of “cutting out the middleman”, it can at least boast of genuine cost savings from not having to deal with very profit hungry retail stores that often earn themselves more profit than manufacturers.

Ruslan Kogan said: “Blu-ray won the format war against Toshiba’s HD DVD, but the technology is still restricted to early adopters. Our affordable product helps drive mass adoption.

“We’ve hit the sweet spot with the Kogan Blu-ray player, by offering a perfect combination of quality, specifications, and price.

“Our direct business model allows us to sell consumer electronic products for far cheaper than any other company. We cut out all the middle men and pass the savings onto customers.”

It makes me wonder when Kogan will come out with its own cut-price, Intel Atom based netbook computer with a 10-inch screen to compete with the Asus, Acer, Dell, Toshiba, MSI and other brands – although there’s no sign of this happening yet.

So, what does Kogan’s Blu-ray player promise? Full HD 1080p through HDMI 1.3, upscaling of your existing DVDs to higher quality, worldwide Blu-ray movie playback, CD playback and playback of JPEGs, MP3s, MPEG2 files and AVI files, among others.



Fuller specs and the on-street sales date on page 2 – please read on.