Coby Electronics Corporation ("COBY" or the "Company") is a privately held "C" Corporation incorporated in the State of New York, USA. Mr. Young Dong Lee, President, founded COBY in 1991.COBY has steadily expanded its sales and distribution operations globally, with manufacturing and/or sales sister operations in Canada, Mexico, Latin America and Hong Kong supplying products needed to support COBY's global sales and distribution operations.

The Company's corporate objective is to provide value to consumers at all levels of income and status, and its corporate vision can be summed up by the phrase "Our World, Coby in Every Home".

The current core product lines for COBY are based on LCD panel technology, such as LCD TV's, digital photo frames, portable DVD players, and MP4 players. A future product direction, based on the natural progression of COBY's expertise in LCD technologies, is the emerging product category known as "Netbooks". But in addition to LCD products, COBY offers over 250 different audio and video products from twenty (20) different CE categories; such diversification allows COBY branded products to be sold to varying distribution channels in each of its markets, enabling COBY to reduce its dependence on any one particular distribution channel for its business.

COBY's corporate headquarter is located in Lake Success, New York, USA, and the main sources of its production are the above-referenced sister manufacturing operations in China. Global logistics are supported by four distribution centers: two in the U.S., one in Canada, and one in Mexico. COBY is also served by various satellite sales offices located throughout the USA, China, Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, and Latin America. Overall, together with sister companies, over 4,000 dedicated professionals, worldwide, serve COBY, and they all share the common corporate objective of providing value to COBY's consumers. Each employee strives each day to achieve that objective.

COBY History

COBY was founded by Mr. Young Dong Lee in 1991, with a corporate objective of delivering value, quality, and innovation in CE products to consumers at all levels of income. Mr. Young Dong Lee set this objective in the mid 1980's while building a separate, +$100 million wholesale distribution business in New York City. His distribution company sold a wide array of branded CE products; yet despite the strong growth of his business, Mr. Lee was unhappy that many consumers could not afford the brand name CE products that he sold. Recognizing a significant opportunity to create a new kind of CE company, Mr. Lee created COBY and steadily built consumer brand equities through an ever-evolving product line and by staying true to the core ideas and objective of delivering consumer value. This simple business objective still remains true today as COBY evolves into a "World Class" CE brand.

The COBY Product Category Evolution

In the early 1990's, COBY's business consisted largely of stereo headphones, cassette players, and audio & video accessories. These main product categories evolved to CD players and portable stereo systems in the late 1990's, but remained focused on the audio category due to the barriers that prevented entry into a video market then dominated by few large manufacturers. However, the new millennium brought about few key changes, VHS technology gave way to DVD technology, and Apple's iPod? brought about a new age of music downloading via the Internet. These major developments opened the door for COBY to enter into the video category as well as transition from CD based products to MP3 based products.

As Coby gained more expertise in DVD technology, it combined DVD technology with another of COBY's core competencies— portable CE products. COBY successfully, introduced its line of portable DVD players in the early 2000's, and the early entry into the portable DVD player market resulted in the Company taking substantial market share. COBY has leveraged that success into its next emerging product category--digital photo frames. In fact, COBY was named the #1 selling digital photo frame brand in the US (in units) for calendar year 2008, according to renowned market research firm NPD.

LCD technology expertise gained from producing portable DVD players and digital photo frames leads COBY into its next logical product progression. In 2009, COBY formally launched a revamped LCD TV line, focused on smaller screen size TV's and TV/DVD combo products—markets largely neglected or abandoned by other CE companies. These markets continue to have strong consumer demand, especially in the weakening global economy.

Following the theme of LCD-TV, the next step in COBY's product evolution may be the emerging "netbook" PC category. COBY already has two of the three core technologies (LCD and portability) needed for strong netbook product development. One thing is certain-- COBY will be expanding into new product lines from its core strengths.