From the Blue Dot to Blaupunkt: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

The symbol of quality became the trademark

April 2008 -- Many companies talk about "corporate identity", but only few actually have it. Blaupunkt is a proven example that the name and the trademark can be identical. After all, the blue dot stands for technical competence in radio reception and route guidance on wheels: Blaupunkt, the Hildesheim-based member of the Bosch group of companies, is a leading supplier of car radios, loudspeakers, vehicle antennas and navigation systems in Europe.

Blaupunkt Car Multimedia

Highlights:
· In Europe, every fourth car radio comes from Blaupunkt
· Blaupunkt features European-wide navigation

It produces more than five million car radios, some 20 million speakers and more than 800,000 navigation systems each year and employs 8,700 people world-wide, of whom more than 2,300 work in Germany. In 2007, the Bosch Car Multimedia division under the direction of Blaupunkt posted sales of more than EUR 1.3 billion.

In the 1920s, Blaupunkt operated under a different name. In 1923, when radio technology was still in its infancy in Germany, a company called "Ideal" was founded in Berlin. In the beginning, the firm manufactured headphones. Technicians carefully inspected each piece of equipment before it was released and marked the headphones that passed inspection with a quality symbol – the blue dot (in German: blauer Punkt = Blaupunkt).

Before long, consumers just began to ask for the headphones with the blue dot. The symbol of quality became the company trademark and in 1938 the company name as well: Blaupunkt. Blaupunkt has been a member of the Bosch Group since 1933, i.e. for more than seven decades now. Following World War II, the company moved from Berlin to Hildesheim. Today the firm also operates car radio production facilities in Braga/Portugal and Penang/Malaysia and manufactures car speakers in Beni Khalled/Tunisia, disk drives in Kecskemét/Hungary as well as vehicle antennas in Vila Real/Portugal.

Europe's very first Autosuper car radio, introduced in 1932, was a Blaupunkt product. Bosch engineers in Stuttgart designed this set to meet the special requirements for its installation in motor vehicles. Meanwhile, some 140 million car radios and more than four million in-vehicle navigation systems bearing the blue dot have rolled off the production lines. Blaupunkt has also been instrumental in advancing the technological development of radio on wheels. In 1952, the company put the first FM car radio onto the market, in 1969 Blaupunkt launched the first stereo car radio, in 1974 they introduced the first traffic message receiver and in 1989, the company presented the first route guidance system. In 1998, Blaupunkt was again the first company to offer terminal equipment for traffic telematics.

At the end of the 1990s, the company created a fully new product line – the integration of the car radio with mobile telephone technology. The system fits neatly into the standard installation compartment and requires no extra installation equipment except for a hands-free microphone and a combination antenna. In addition to hands-free talking, it also allows hands-free listening – which is a significant addition to driving safety, since the driver can always keep both hands on the wheel.

Blaupunkt engineers consistently devote their efforts to developing innovations and this is of particular benefit to the core business of in-vehicle multimedia technology. To name an example: The company's latest Bremen system represents a true milestone in car hi-fi development – not least due to its exceptional reception performance. With its built-in TwinCeiver, the system also sports the world's smallest dual receiver. The TwinCeiver chip accommodates two tuner paths as well as digital antenna diversity control. This sophisticated process was developed by Blaupunkt engineers and corresponds to that of an extremely quick, automatically tracked directional antenna.

And within the next five years, motorists will have accepted Digital Radio – Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) – as the successor to traditional FM radio. To support this new transmission technology, Blaupunkt introduced the Woodstock DAB 52 early in the summer of 2002, the first car radio in the world to unite two digital technologies in a single housing: DAB radio reception and Internet music playback in the MP3 standard. Another major highlight of the latest Digital Radios currently on the market is that they are able to record and play back DAB programs at any time at the push of a button.

As early as in 2001, at the International Audio and Video Show in Berlin, Blaupunkt presented the prototype of an Internet radio – a multitasking device that can be used to listen to the radio, place telephone calls or receive e-mail. Such networked systems are a clear indication of what the future holds for mobile communications, because motorists are unlikely to accept any new communications technologies that distract them from their primary task: driving. Consequently, new developments do not only aim to make the operation of the individual components easier. They also focus on converging the control of these components in a central driver information system – with convenient menu-prompting that involves as few buttons as possible.

Route guidance is among the new services that car radios provide nowadays, a field in which Blaupunkt has already blazed new trails. The TravelPilot IDS, introduced as the very first navigation system for regular road traffic in Europe, came from Hildesheim in 1989. It marked the current vehicle position and the selected destination on an electronic roadmap. Meanwhile, the system is able to calculate the quickest possible route between these two points and to generate a driving recommendation for each traffic junction. Whether it is integrated into a mobile media center or installed as a stand-alone system, the TravelPilot displays turning directions for the next intersection or, alternatively, a road map. It features European-wide navigation and the friendly voice from the speech memory always lets the driver know well in advance when it's time to make the next turn.

In addition, Blaupunkt was also the first company to develop and mass produce a dynamic route guidance system that is automatically able to integrate reports of traffic congestion into the route guidance system. With the introduction of dynamic navigation systems, it is now possible for the system to provide up-to-date driving recommendations based on the current traffic situation.

The Hildesheim-based company now offers "Plug and Play" for PND devices (Portable Navigation Devices) on the aftermarket and in the retail industry as well. The TravelPilot is the new portable navigation device from Blaupunkt that can be easily mounted on the dashboard or the front windshield. It features European-wide navigation along with easy installation and operation as well as intuitive user prompting. Now car drivers who consider a navigation system as a useful, desirable accessory for their car really can have everything their hearts could desire.

Blaupunkt, a company belonging to the Bosch Group, is an internationally leading manu­fac­turer of driver information systems, car radios, car speakers and vehicle antennas. Blau­punkt has its main headquarters in Hildesheim, Germany, and maintains other pro­duction sites in Portugal, Hungary, Tunisia, Malaysia and China. The company posted sales of more than Euro 1.3 billion in fiscal year 2007 and employs approximately 8,700 people worldwide.

Source: Blaupunkt

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