Telefunken

Telefunken was a German radio and television producer, founded in Berlin in 1903 as a joint venture between Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) ("General electricity company"). Prior to World War I, the company set up the first world-wide network of communications and was the first in the world to sell electronic televisions with cathode-ray tubes, in Germany in 1934 and were influential in building studio microphones. In 1941, Siemens sold its 50% stake to AEG making Telefunken a wholly-owned subsidiary. The two formally merged into a single AEG-Telefunken in 1967, and collapsed in 1982 after which its consumer radio and television arm was sold to Thomson and its military and aviation arm acquired by Daimler-Benz with some of its subsidiaries continuing on with the name. Since 2004, the trademark rights to Telefunken belong to TELEFUNKEN Licenses GmbH (owned since 2023 by Gordon Brothers) who have licensed the brand to other companies for use on products. Most notably these are Telefunken televisions and white goods made by Turkish Vestel (since 2008), consumer audio and e-mobility made by Karcher AG and premium studio audio equipment made by American Telefunken Elektroakustik.