articles link to it . please introduce links to this page from related articles ; try the find link tool for suggestions . march 2014 bernafon industry health care founded 1946 headquarters bern switzerland products hearing instruments and accessories number of employees 500 parent william demant holding 1 website www.bernafon.com bernafon is a swiss hearing health company that specializes in hearing instruments . bernafon belongs to the danish william demant holding group which is among the largest hearing instrument manufacturers worldwide . contents 1 history 2 product lines 3 external links 4 references history edit the story of bernafon began shortly after the second world war at the gfeller company in flamatt switzerland . the head of the company hans gfeller was severely hearing impaired . as a result of this hans gfeller s son and one of his fellow students started building their own hearing instruments . the first model completed in 1946 saw the device and its battery housed in two separate leather cases . it was therefore given the name a1 2 pack . the device was soon in demand . by 1949 sales contracts had been signed with customers in italy north africa and the middle east . by 1975 the instruments provided 20 % of the firm s total turnover . the most important products however were telephones and telephone systems . in 1987 the companies autophon gfeller ag hasler and zellweger telecommunications were merged to form the ascom group . the newly created group employed a total of 14 000 workers and was ranked eleventh among the world s telecommunication firms . a further expansion took place in 1992 with the takeover of the hearing instrument activities of the german firm robert bosch gmbh . the integration of bosch s hearing instrument activities and the simultaneous creation of a production line in australia proved too great a challenge for the relatively small company . the takeover by the william demant group resulted in a move into new headquarters in bern . in 1995 all the divisions were renamed under the name bernafon . product lines edit carista acriva chronos inizia xtreme mature product line veras v rit prio neo win external links edit companies portal bernafon website william demant website references edit http files.shareholder.com downloads abea 4c7ph1 1491578191x0x464153 b9ac7fe7 0473 4afd 82c7 d2e69c04f798 annual % 20report % 202010 low.pdf retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title bernafon & oldid 727585935 categories hearing aid manufacturersmanufacturing companies of switzerlandhealth care companies of switzerlandelectronics companies of switzerlandswiss brandshidden categories orphaned articles from march 2014all orphaned articles navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschmagyar edit links this page was last modified on 29 june 2016 at 23 13 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view