Vertu, a brand known for its luxury and hefty priced smartphone is shutting down its operations in the UK. The company was established by Nokia in 1998 and was sold to Swedish equity group EQT VI back in 2001. It was then sold to Godin Holding in 2015, and earlier this year in March Vertu was acquired by Turkish businessman Murat Hakan Uzan.
Vertu's devices offered a premium experience and was aimed at very rich people, so only a small number of units were manufactured. The phones were made of luxury materials like sapphire screens, titanium frames, gold, alligator, leather and diamond. The brand's phone carried hefty price tag between $9000 and $20000. The company also offered a 24×7 concierge services for assistant as part of the handset’s price.
It is being said that Vertu was faced by financial difficulties and running on a deficit of £128 million. As a result of the shutdown, a total of 200 employees have lost their jobs. Uzan will retain ownership of Vertu's brand technology and design licenses, and reportedly wants to revive the brand sometime in the future.
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The ownership of Vertu, is once again changing hands. The British based luxury smartphone maker has been bought by Baferton Ltd, an investment vehicle funded by exiled Turkish millionaire Hakan Uzan for £50 million ($60 million) from its Hong Kong based owners, Godin Holdings.
Uzan Akan is part of one of Turkey's most dominant and controversial families. The Uzan Group conglomerate included a bank, a string of power plant and broadcasting companies. But in 90's the Uzan family sparked controversy amid fraud complaints from Nokia and Motorola.
In 1994, Uzan family borrowed money from Nokia and Motorola to set up mobile network, Telism. The company was later hit by financial difficulties, due to dotcom crash, which led to defaulting on loans amounting $2.1 billion. The family was also accused of misusing the cash to pay for private jets and international properties by Motorola and Nokia, for which the companies were awarded multi-million dollar damages
In 2002, Uzan was found to be in contempt of the court, after he failed to attend a hearing in relation to allegations, for which he was sentenced to 15 months in prison for absentia. The battle with Nokia led to the fall from power for the Uzan Family. However, the trouble did not stop there, as their assets were seized over fraud allegations later in 2003. Since than, Uzan has been in exile and is seeking asylum in France.
As for Vertue, this is the third time the company's ownership is changing hands, since Nokia built it, back in the 90's. It
was sold to Swedish equity group EQT VI back in 2001 for £175 million.
The company was then sold to Godin Holding in 2015, and now belongs to
Hakan Uzan.
The
Vertu brand, which was targeted at very rich people with handsets
costing up to £40,000, hit trouble after it failed to catch the
smartphone wave triggered by the launch of iPhone in 2007. Apart from a hefty price tag, another drawback of Vertu phone were the outdated specs. The most recent financial results of Vertu date back to 2014, where it reported a loss of of £53 million on sales on £110 million.
Uzan via a spokesperson, said to Daily Telegraph "Vertu
is a powerful brand with an acknowledged market niche. I look forward
to working with the team and providing the investment to enable Vertu to
realize its full potential."
The past few months, has been all about brand resurrection, with two major iconic brand, Nokia and BlackBerry returning to the smartphone market, and the reception has been overwhelming both from critics and customers. It will be interesting to see what Uzan Hakan's grand plan is for Vertu.
Source | Via
Premium smartphone brand Vertu in partnership with Bentley have released a co-branded smartphone dubbed Signature Touch for Bentley. This the the third phone between Vertu and Bentley.
The Signature Touch for Bentley is the same Signature Touch that was released in September last year, with same specification, but with custom additions for added exclusivity and luxury.
It sports two-tone Beluga and Hotspur Bentley leather, with Hotspur stiching. It also has knurled side keys and a one-of-a-kind pillow rail, a sound bar and a 3D Bentley logo. The smartphone comes pre-loaded with a Bentley app that delivers exclusive content to users including tailored events, VIP access and additional features that coincide with Bentley vehicles. Vertu is also offering "Made to Order" option to customers, which will allow personalisation with the choice of eight leather colors and 16 stitching options.
The brand claims that the display of the phone is the most vibrant ever. It has Dolby Digital Plus virtual surround sound and runs Android 5.1 Lollipop and packs a Lost Phone service feature, that allows users to remotely lock and wipe the phone if lost or stolen. It also comes with the metal Gull-Wing doors, that is placed on each side of the rear camera, one is for microSD card and the other for SIM slot.
For reference, the Virtue Signature Touch is the most luxurious powerful smartphone to date. It sports a 5.2-inch 1080p display with 5th gen Sapphire Crystal screen and is powered by 64-bit Snapdragon 810 SoC with 4GB RAM and 64GB expandable storage. For imaging, it is equipped with 21-megapixel rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, f/2.2 aperture and PDAF, while the front snapper is 2.1-megapixel. It is fueled by 3160mAh battery.
The Vertu Signature Touch for Bently prices start at $9,000 (Rs. 6 Lakhs) and will be available starting January 28.
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Vertu, a premium smartphone brand has introduced Signature Touch smartphone, an upgrade over the existing Signature model. The main highlight of the handset is the metal Gull-Wing doors placed on each side of the rear camera, one for microSD card slot and the other for SIM slots.
Vertu Signature Touch features 5.2-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) phosphor LED powered LCD, protected by 5th gen Sapphire crystal screen. The pixel density of the display is
428ppi. Inside there is an Octa-core Snapdragon 810 64-bit processor with Adreno 430 GPU and 4GB RAM. On-board storage is 64GB, further expandable via microSD card up to 2TB. It runs Android 5.1 Lollipop.
There is 21-megapixel camera on the back with f/2.2 sensor with PDAF, dual-tone LED flash and can record 4K videos as well. On the front sits a 2.1-megapixel camera for clicking selfies and for video calls.
On the connectivity front, the handset supports 4G LTE, 3G HSPA+, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/b/ac (2.4GHz / 5GHz), Bluetooth 4.0 LE, GPS/GLONASS, MHL and NFC. It is fueled by 3160mAh battery and supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0. There is a front-facing speaker powered by Dolby Digital Plus virtual surround sound.
The new Vertu Signature Touch comes in eight different leather body variants - Jet Calf, Garnet Calf, Grape
Lizard, Pure Jet Lizard, Jet Alligator, Pure Navy Alligator, Clous de
Paris Alligator, and Pure Jet Red Gold, each of which can be
personalised with engraving.
Vertu Signature Touch prices start at GBP 6,500 and goes up to GBP 13,700 (Rs. 6.5 lakhs to Rs. 13.8 lakhs, depending on the choice of leather body cover. It will be available in select stores around the globe starting October 16
