Dyson is in trouble – but not for the reason you might think...

You have to hand it to Sir James Dyson and his team. They are really trying to put a positive spin on the company’s latest revenue figures – which, it has been revealed, fell by nearly 50 per cent last year.

Not only are they bragging about “record volumes” of products being sold, they also filed a total of 238 patents last year – compared to the 231 in 2023 – aimed at “protecting new innovations globally.”

But when you look at the figures that actually count – you know, the ones involving money – things were far from pretty, with a slump of half a billion, to £6.5bn.

All this begs the question: How will “new wet and dry floor cleaning technology, robotic technology and purification technology, as well as complete reinventions of our hair dryer and vacuum cleaner formats” save them?

Hanno Kirner, Dyson’s CEO, blamed “one-off issues” for the fall in revenues, including “adverse currency fluctuations”. Who knows what the others were?

But the key paragraph in the press release for me was the company talking about “slower economic growth in 2024” and “reduced consumer confidence in some key markets”. That is the heart of Dyson’s issues.

Where its “reinvented” hairdryer and styling tool, the Airwrap,once won over scores of beauty fanatics, it suddenly became far less appealing in a tricky economy – especially with a minimum price tag of £370-odd quid, and, of course, when there are many cheaper alternatives that do the job.

I wonder how many consumers are now asking themselves if those Dyson “innovations” are worth it. Its future rests on the answer.

Dyson is a company that wants us to pay for the name as much as it does the technology. Sure, their products get great reviews and they have seasonal sales boosts like lots of other companies. But does the brand actually offer genuine “must-have” gadgets any more, like it did in the days when its vacuum cleaners somehow became the “in” thing?

What makes it harder to cheer the British-born company on is Sir James’ loud Brexit campaign – and his subsequent move of the business to Singapore in 2019, leaving the rest of us grappling with the results of that historic mistake – including elevated food prices, a rotten economy and a sharp reduction in trade. He still, by the way, claims it was “worth it”.

Now, to be fair to him, he has made sizeable investments in the UK, but the operation is getting smaller, with a third of the workforce going as part of a global shake-up to remain competitive in “fierce” markets. Those markets give every sign that they’re going to remain, shall we say, “challenging”.

I still wouldn’t necessarily bet against the founder. Sir James has a brain the size of a planet and he’s a formidable businessman. But he’s certainly got something to prove – that applies to both his products and the eponymous company.