Teenage Engineering plans to stop making synthesizers
Teenage Engineering CEO Jesper Kouthoofd has said the company intends to quit making synthesizers, including the flagship OP-1. He argues that products are not the core of the business.
Teenage Engineering, the Swedish design and electronics company best known for its synthesizers, plans to stop making such devices. CEO Jesper Kouthoofd told High Snobiety about the decision.
According to him, during a reorganization last autumn he told his team he intended to stop producing synthesizers altogether. The OP-1 is not exempt. The model was launched in 2011, put the company on the map and has been central to its success since.
The team's first reaction was confusion, Kouthoofd said. He explained that he had concluded that, for the company, the products are not the business and that it can be much more than that.
What may come next
Because most of the company's products are music or audio devices, the move suggests Teenage Engineering may cease to be a conventional product manufacturer. It may turn more toward design, although Kouthoofd was not explicit about this in his comments.
The company has considerable design credentials beyond its own lineup. It was behind the Playdate console and the Rabbit R1, has worked with smartphone and audio company Nothing, and has produced notable one-offs such as the Mayku Multiplier pressure former and the Impossible Camera, as well as collaborations with IKEA.
An unclear timeline
Regular users of the company's products on Reddit reacted with some alarm, particularly because the timeline was left very vague. According to the article, whatever the company does next may take a while to develop. Speaking about one important project that "may change our online lives", Kouthoofd said some of the upcoming projects will not be released for five to 10 years.
