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For more than three decades Norsonic and Rion have been conducting a fruitful cooperation. With Norsonic's strong market presence in Europe and Rion’s strength in Asia, both companies have been offering each other selected products on an OEM basis since the late 1980’s. In North America, the Norsonic owned company Scantek has also been the distributor channel for Rion products. Over the decades, both companies used their R&D efforts and focus on different applications, resulting in individual strengths and fields of expertise. With its high investments in R&D over the last decade, Norsonic is today in a stronger financial position than it has been ever before, with an outstanding product portfolio.

With Norsonic’s main shareholders approaching retirement age, we are very happy to announce that Rion is taking our common vision to the next step by acquiring the shares in Norsonic AS. Two financially very strong companies are joining forces with the aim to be the world’s leading supplier of measurement solutions for sound and vibration applications. "It is the best owner Norsonic and its employees could have wished for. With Rion’s knowledge and reputation, I am convinced that our customers will continue to get top products also in the future” says Norsonic BoD chairman Svein Arne Nordby. The Norsonic CEO Steinar Bøhn continues: "Rion and Norsonic are both supplying sound level meters, data acquisition systems and data analysis software, however, with very little overlap. Neither the products themselves nor the market distribution have seen much direct competition, hence, the synergies of this acquisition are great."

Norsonic will continue as an independent company within the Rion group, and all operations will continue from the HQ in Norway. Our customers will benefit from a strengthened R/D and marketing capacity in Norway with continued strong focus on local presence and customer support in our markets. To secure Norsonic’s continued success, Rion has agreed with BoD chairman Svein Arne Nordby and CEO Steinar Bøhn to continue in their positions for at least another three years.

Norsonic will be the R&D center for high-end premium sound level meters and highly sophisticated software for Building acoustics, Room acoustics, Sound Power and cloud-based noise and vibration monitoring, while Rion will continue to focus on their strength supplying high-quality, cost-effective sound level meters mainly for industrial hygiene and noise assessments measurements along with dataloggers and analyzers for industrial applications.

The two companies will cooperate in common research projects including developing new measurement platforms, AI technology and strengthen the market presence worldwide.

The President & CEO of Rion, Kiyokatsu Iwahashi outlines: "We are convinced that acquiring Norsonic, a well-known company in Europe, with outstanding expertise, R&D performance, and products, will help us achieve our objective of contributing to the world as stated in our corporate philosophy. Our goal is to become the world’s number one supplier.”