The predecessor to Magnavox was founded in 1911 by Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen, co-inventors of the moving-coil loudspeaker at their lab in Napa, California, under United States Patent number 1,105,924 for telephone receivers.

[8] Magnavox brand name products are currently made by Funai and Craig Electronics under license from trademark owner Philips.

Jensen and Pridham founded the Commercial Wireless and Development Company in Napa, CA in 1911, moving to San Francisco, and then Oakland in 1916.

In the late 1970s, Philips developed LaserDisc technology, producing an optically read, 12 inch disc that would contain recorded video material.

In the early 1980s, Philips worked with Sony to create a standard for optical audio discs (CDs), using the technology developed for the LaserDisc.

[14] The three areas of business of the MESC operation during the late 1980s and early 1990s were C-Cubed (Command, Control, and Communication), Electronic Warfare, and sonobuoys.

[citation needed] Shortly thereafter, Raytheon spun off the sonobuoy operation to form Under Sea Systems Inc (USSI), in Columbia City, Indiana.

[15] The company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Ultra, manufacturing water and acoustic sensing and communications devices for military and civil defense.

[18] In Australia, the rights to the Magnavox brand are not owned by Philips but by Mistral Ltd, a Hong Kong trading company that uses it to sell audio/video equipment of a different make.