BenQ rebranding former Siemens phones starting in 07
As part of BenQ's acquisition of Siemens' cellphone line, inked in June, BenQ has the right to use the Siemens brand on its phones for five years. But it looks like BenQ has quickly realized what thousands of consumers (not to mention Siemens execs) already knew: there isn't a whole lot of brand equity in the Siemens name when it comes to cellphones. So the Taiwan-based company has announced that it'll begin scrapping the Siemens brand and marketing the phones as BenQ models beginning in 2007. Given that all BenQ really got when it handed over $360 million for the Siemens division was the right to use the name, we imagine the company's shareholders must be pretty cranky about now (and Siemens' shareholders must be high-fiving each other, knowing they got over so easily). Then again, considering that Siemens paid BenQ $360 million just to take the division off their hands, it shouldn't come as a big surprise that BenQ is ready to ditch the name so quickly.
