Surely a Sonova return would be good business, although maybe using a different brand to Phonak, now very much positioned in the Premium bracket post Sphere launch. Be good too for Costco to have them back - choice is always good.
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I imagine the deal would be more important for Sonova than for Costco. I doubt Costco is going to sell that many more hearing aids by adding Sonova, but Sonova would likely gain a lot of sales. I have no idea what the “sticking point” is, but it does seem there is one.
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The new Phonak Audéo Infinio R-I90 would be perfect for release at Costco whether under the Kirkland, Phonak, or alternate label. This is the new Infinio model but without the Sphere chip.
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I took my K 10’s in about 2 weeks before the warranty was going to run out for new batteries. The gave me K 10 loaners ans basically i got completely new everything, charger, aids and adjustment. Always had great Bluetooth with my Samsung 22 ultra could’ve have expected more.
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It’s a paywall with a free trial period and no credit card required. I used it a while ago to read another article mentioned in these forums.
I tend to think that Phonak made that big splash at Vegas with the sphere in order to influence Costco into selling Phonak aids again.
I doubt that Phonak is going to let Costco sell the Speric 90 hearing aids for $1,600. If Sonova returns to Costco it will probably be with Unitron, Hansation or a Costco specialty brand (Think Oticon and Philips). Just my two cents which is probably worth less than that.
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I agree, @ronshere, that Phonak is paving the way for a return to Costco.
I agree, @raylock1, that Phonak will not make the Sphere available at Costco. BUT, I do think that they will be back at Costco and not with a Unitron or a Hansaton. In fact they will be back as a Phonak IMO, which will give them a tremendous marketing advantage over their competitors who are rebranding their products under a different name.
Demant tried to gain an advantage by licensing the highly recognizable Philips brand to gain an advantage over less recognizable brand names like Rexton and Jabra. But I think that Phonak will go one better by giving their product the full recognition of a Big 6 hearing aid brand. What I expect Phonak to do, however, is to release the defeatured version of the Infinio, i.e. without Sphere.
Why else is Phonak even offering the Infinio without Sphere? It’s the most complicated and confusing roll out of a new product I’ve seen - 4 different technology levels of the Infinio R (90, 70, 50, 30) AND 2 different technology levels of the Infinio Sphere (90, 70). All introduced at the same time! There must be a reason for this and the minimal price difference suggests that it’s not money. There must be another shoe to drop. And that will likely be Costco. Which means that what they’re pursuing with the convoluted structuring is volume. Money in another guise.
Makes a lot of sense to me @billgem