Luxor was a Swedish home electronics and computer manufacturer located in

Motala Motala () is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Motala Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with a municipal population of 43,717 inhabitants in 2024. It is the third largest city of Östergötland, following Linköping and N ...

, established in 1923 and acquired by

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

in 1985. The brand name is now owned by Turkish company

Vestel Vestel is a Turkish home and professional appliances manufacturing company consisting of 18 companies specialised in electronics, major appliances and information technology. Vestel's headquarters and production plant are located in Manisa, whil ...

and is used for televisions sold in the Swedish market. Originally a manufacturer of

tape recorder An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present ...

s, radios,

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

sets,

stereo Stereophonic sound, commonly shortened to stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configurat ...

systems, and other home electronics, it launched its first

home computer Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...

, the

ABC 80 The ABC 80 (Advanced BASIC Computer 80) is a home computer engineered by the Swedish corporation Dataindustrier AB (DIAB) and manufactured by Luxor in Motala, Sweden in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was introduced on the market in August 1 ...

in 1978. The succeeding

ABC 800 The Luxor AB, Luxor ABC 800 series are office versions of the ABC 80 home computer. They featured an enhanced BASIC interpreter (computing), interpreter, and more memory: 32 kilobytes RAM and 32 KB ROM was now standard. The Zilog Z80, Z ...

series was introduced in 1981 with new releases in 1983 being produced until the ABC line was terminated in 1986.

History

The company was established in 1923 by Axel Holstensson (full name Axel Harald Holstensson; 1889–1979). He was the son of an ore loader and had no training other than a few years of elementary school. He worked as an electrician and eventually as a travel fitter and foreman at ASEA for years, from 1907 to 1918. In his spare time, he studied electrical engineering. In 1918, he moved to Motala and started an electronics store and installation company Motala Electric Agency (). The post-war depression, however, almost led to bankruptcy, the situation was critical and the resort was to start building radios. Components were procured from Germany and it was shown to be possible to sell a number of devices at a profit, so Axel Holstensson registered the Luxor Radio Factory Company () in 1923. The name Luxor was apposite and then very topical as the

Tomb of Tutankhamun The tomb of Tutankhamun (reigned ), a pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt, is located in the Valley of the Kings. The tomb, also known by its List of burials in the Valley of the Kings, tomb number KV ...

had just been discovered near the city of

Luxor Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt. Luxor had a population of 263,109 in 2020, with an area of approximately and is the capital of the Luxor Governorate. It is among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited c ...

in Egypt. Finnish company Nokia became a principal owner in the company in 1984. Computer production was discontinued in 1986, followed by television production in Motala in 1992, when the production moved to Finland. Instead, it produced receivers for cable and satellite television. But Nokia wanted to streamline its business to mobile telephony and therefore sold the satellite receiver business in 1998 to American company Space Craft Inc. The company continued to manufacture satellite receivers in Motala until 2002, when it was transferred to low-cost countries. In October 1997, Nokia sold its car speaker and audio amplifier business to Harman International Industries. A collaboration with the then

Electrolux Electrolux AB () is a Swedish Multinational corporation, multinational home appliance manufacturer, headquartered in Stockholm. It is consistently ranked the world's second largest appliance maker by units sold, after Whirlpool Corporation, Whi ...

-owned Autoliv AB led to the company first becoming a partner for Luxor Electronics since 1998, then buying the entire business. In Motala, there still remains manufacturing of various types of electronic products for the automotive industry but not under the Luxor brand. The brand name was later sold to the Norwegian retailer Elkjøp ASA, as when British company Dixons Retail bought Elkjøp in November 1999, they also acquired the Luxor brand. In 2006 Turkish company

acquired the Luxor brand.

References

Defunct companies of Sweden Electronics companies of Sweden Electronics companies established in 1923 Electronics companies disestablished in 2002 Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct computer systems companies Swedish companies established in 1923 2002 disestablishments in Sweden Companies disestablished in 2002 Swedish companies disestablished in the 2000s 20th-century establishments in Östergötland County Motala 21st-century disestablishments in Östergötland County {{Sweden-company-stub

History

See also

References