Philips and Funai have entered a brand licence agreement under which Funai is to assume responsibility for the sourcing, distribution, marketing and sales of all Philips’ consumer television activities in North America.

Philips Consumer Lifestyles will license its Philips and Magnavox brands to Funai for Blu-ray Disc players, DVD players, DVD recorders and home cinema products in the US effective 1 January 2009. This follows its decision to license the Philips and Magnavox brands for TV products to Funai Electric.

Philips will receive royalty payments in exchange for Funai's right to exclusively use the Philips and Magnavox brand names for these product categories in the United States during this period. The agreement will run three years, with the ability to extend it further.

After the transition, Philips Consumer Lifestyles’ electronics product offerings will be limited to primarily “On The Go” portable products including MP3 players, headphones, and portable DVD players.

Unlike the TV agreement, which covered products marketed in the United States and Canada, the new video agreement covers only those video and home cinema products sold in the United States, according to a Philips spokesperson.

The newly formed Philips & Funai company (PNF-USA), based in Atlanta, has been handling Philips-branded TV sets since August of this year.

The spokesperson said that the transition should be easy as Funai was already manufacturing Blu-ray Disc players for Philips distribution. Philips DVD players and other DVD products were sourced from other manufacturers. (Source: TWICE).

Story filed 25.11.08