Amstrad
 |
|
| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Electronics |
| Founded | 1968 |
| Headquarters | Brentwood, Essex, United Kingdom |
|
Area served
|
UK and Ireland |
|
Key people
|
|
| Revenue |
 £91.65 million (2006) |
|
£26.94 million GBP (2006) |
|
|
£15.08 million GBP (2006) |
|
| Owner | Sky plc |
|
Number of employees
|
85 (2005) |
| Parent | Sky plc |
| Website | amstrad.com |
Amstrad is a British electronics company. As of 2006[update], Amstrad's main business is manufacturing Sky UK interactive boxes.
Amstrad was founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. It was first listed on the in 1980. During the late 1980s, Amstrad had a substantial share of the PC market in the UK. Amstrad was once a FTSE 100 Index constituent but since 2007 is wholly owned by BSkyB.
The company had offices in Kings Road, Brentwood, Essex.
Amstrad was founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21, the name of the original company being AMS Trading (Amstrad) Limited, derived from its founder's initials (Alan Michael Sugar). Amstrad entered the market in the field of consumer electronics. During the 1970s they were at the forefront of low-priced hi-fi, TV and car stereo cassette technologies. Lower prices were achieved by injection moulding plastic hi-fi turntable covers, undercutting competitors who used the vacuum forming process.
Amstrad expanded to the marketing of low cost, low quality amplifiers and tuners, imported from the Far East and badged with the Amstrad name for the UK market. Their first electrical product was the Amstrad 8000 amplifier, which Sugar would describe later as "the biggest load of rubbish I've ever seen in my life."
In 1980, Amstrad went public trading on the , and doubled in size each year during the early '80s. Amstrad began marketing its own home computers in an attempt to capture the market from Commodore and Sinclair, with the Amstrad CPC range in 1984. The CPC 464 was launched in the UK, France, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Spain and Italy. It was followed by the CPC 664 and CPC 6128 models. Later "Plus" variants of the 464 and 6128, launched in 1990, increased their functionality slightly.
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Wikipedia