[ICOM] FW: Icom Prices

[Kelly Taylor]

What would happen? They'd stop producing amateur radios.

In any product-driven endeavour, you need buyers of all buying habits to 
support the product-creation costs.

You need the early adopters to start flowing cash into the company and to 
help work out any residual "bugs".
You need the mid-cycle joiners to keep the revenue going and lastly,
You need the 'closeout' buyers to pump the last little bit of cash and 
provide, in part, seed money for the next generation of product.

The cost of the parts in a radio is only part of the equation. There's 
development costs, which run to the value of several, if not hundreds or 
thousands of products. Which means you need to sell, maybe 5,000 IC-756PRO 
III to earn your way back to break-even. There's salary for the workers. 
There's overhead for the plants. There are  marketing costs. There are 
distribution costs. And lastly, and most importantly, profit for the 
shareholders.

A boycott won't help amateur radio pricing. It will only cause more 
manufacturers to close down their amateur operations and concentrate on the 
more profitable commercial radios.

Another point to make is that expensiveness is relative. I haven't done the 
analysis, but I'll bet that whatever Drake was charging for the twins, or 
later for the TR-7, R-7 combination, was exponentially more expensive, 
relative to average income, than the IC-756 PRO III is today.

73, kelly
ve4xt
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <n5wv at eastex.net>
To: <icom at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 3:04 AM
Subject: [ICOM] FW: Icom Prices


>
>
>
>
> ------- Original Message -------
>>From    : n5wv at eastex.net[mailto:n5wv at eastex.net]
> Sent    : 5/23/2007 3:03:14 AM
> To      : ico at mailman.qth.net
> Cc      :
> Subject : FW: Icom Prices
>
> Group ,  I only buy radios , amps and other pieces of gear when its at 
> closeout. I could buy them just
> after listed on the market but I like knowing that the product is at its 
> full design potential with no
> bugs or rev levs waiting around the corner. And as a collector I like 
> having the high serial numbers that
> buying late gives me. With that said Im wondering what would happen if we 
> would hold off buying these
> brand new radios for six months to a year after marketing them ? 
> Manufacturers use to make a product and
> figure the selling price at getting everything back that they have put 
> into it plus a good profit. But
> nowdays it seems that they are looking at how much would someone pay the 
> most for a radio. Its like they
> are testing the waters to just see how much one will pay for these radios. 
> Just compare the jump in price
> from the 781 , 775DSP and others to where they are now with this new 7700 
> , 7800 and 9500 receiver. I
> believe that the replacement for the 756PIII will cost $5-$6K. Its like 
> there seeing how much other
> hobbies cost like bass boats and rv's so why cant we charge that much for 
> our radios. I looked at a 2007
> Honda Element for my daughter and it was around $15,000.00usd. I just cant 
> see these radios costing almost
> as much as a car. Someone mentioned that they are going to buy a Yaesu 
> because they are cheaper and have
> dual receive where the 7700 does not. They better buy it now because I bet 
> Yaesu will up there prices
> right up there with Icom if sales allow. If everyone would hold off buying 
> these new radios for six
> months or so they may drop the prices because I can assure you that even 
> with all of there r&d and
> production cost theres lots of room to come down off of the price. 73 , de 
> Randy N5WV
>
> ----
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