Marine electronics - unreasonably expensive?

AngusMcDoon

AngusMcDoon

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It was suggested on another thread that marine electronic devices are unreasonably expensive and the large profits are being made. However, the recent evidence from UK based marine electronics manufacturers is that they struggle to stay in business:

B&G - taken over by Navico
Raymarine - had a very wobbly time a few years ago when their share price fell to pence
Nasa - seem to have found their niche, but I doubt are making huge profits at their low prices
Cetrek - dead and gone
Stowe - were they UK based? Gone anyway.

Marine electronics do seem expensive for what you get compared to phones, TV's and other consumer gadgets, but the reason for that is simple - lack of economy of scale. The development costs are shared by a few thousand sales, not a few million. Are the prices we pay unreasonable, or to be expected for non-mainstream consumer items?
 
AngusMcDoon said:
Are the prices we pay unreasonable, or to be expected for non-mainstream consumer items?
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On the whole they seem reasonable. I would be more tempted to ask whether quite so much custom hardware development is necessary rather than quibbling about its cost. Besides, anyone who thinks marine electronic equipment is expensive should look at aviation stuff ...
 
AngusMcDoon said:
Marine electronics do seem expensive for what you get compared to phones, TV's and other consumer gadgets, but the reason for that is simple - lack of economy of scale. The development costs are shared by a few thousand sales, not a few million. Are the prices we pay unreasonable, or to be expected for non-mainstream consumer items?
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But ... surely most marine electronic products are designed for, and sold, world-wide and do benefit from economy of scale. Perhaps local homologation costs are responsible for local variations but I always buy from the US where the same product is much cheaper than Europe. Even with shipping and higher taxes the unit is much cheaper than buying here.

In one case, a Raymarine wheel pilot, not only much cheaper but a later model not available in Europe at that time.
 
I imagine the marine electronics manufacturers are feel the pinch as tablets and phones are pressed into service as plotters and everything else; purposes for which they are wholly unsuitable. (a) not waterproof (b) not sunlight viewable (c) not shock resistant. The qualities that phones and tablets lack, are the qualities that cost money.
 
Probably not bad value given the low numbers of sales. What is unfortunately is the it seems to take longer for new technology to get in to new models, standalone gps, ais engines and wind etc transmitting over wifi would be great for some of us, though would probably hurt the manufacturers overall so maybe not so surprising :)
 
Most marine electronics are unreasonably expensive in Europe, because the requirement for CE marking offers manufacturers a wonderful opportunity to sell the same kit at higher prices.
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elton said:
I imagine the marine electronics manufacturers are feel the pinch as tablets and phones are pressed into service as plotters and everything else; purposes for which they are wholly unsuitable. (a) not waterproof (b) not sunlight viewable (c) not shock resistant. The qualities that phones and tablets lack, are the qualities that cost money.
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All true but the cost is driving the market towards 'alternative' systems.

I reckon someone who can come up with a low/medium cost radar that will interface to a tablet will have a nice little earner.
 
I reckon if the manufacturers were to take on an opensource model for their OS and applications they would maintain or even increase their hardware sales. Said it before but one ceases to bang ones head after a while!
 
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Barnac1e said:
But ... surely most marine electronic products are designed for, and sold, world-wide and do benefit from economy of scale.
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Yes they are, but a piece of marine hardware will still sell less than lets say 1% or thereabouts compared to a phone for example. There are probably something like 50M mobile devices in use in this country, and less than 500,000 chartplotters or radars. Those numbers are just guessed, but there's the 100:1 ratio for a start.
 
nimbusgb said:
I reckon if the manufacturers were to take on an opensource model for their OS and applications they would maintain or even increase their hardware sales. Said it before but one ceases to bang ones head after a while!
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The OS of choice for complex marine devices is Linux now, although of course the applications are closed. I wonder if OpenCPN would be allowed to be put on commercial hardware.

What's going on in that picture?
 
Barnac1e said:
...but I always buy from the US where the same product is much cheaper than Europe. Even with shipping and higher taxes the unit is much cheaper than buying here.
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I really can't explain or understand that. It works the other way round too as well sometimes. When I used to winter climbing the cost of plastic boots over the pond was horrendously expensive compared to what we paid. I remember seeing a pair in a Canadian outdoors shop for £600.
 
AngusMcDoon said:
The OS of choice for complex marine devices is Linux now, although of course the applications are closed. I wonder if OpenCPN would be allowed to be put on commercial hardware.

What's going on in that picture?
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It was an animated gif of the bloke banging his head against the fence but the forum software appears to have nobbled it!

The older raymarine stuff runs on embedded Windoze afaik.

With the old e series now unsupported it would be fun to get one and rehash it to linux if I had a chunk of time to play with.
 
It's possible to look at the accounts or even just the annual reports of a PLC, rather than making absurd comparisons with throwaway consumer products.
Having worked in the industry, I would say NASA's prices are incredibly reasonable, B&G you are paying a premium for a niche-within-a-niche market, Raymarine ought to be quite profitable but nowhere near enough to justify that office block they had.
When you take off the VAT, retailer's markup and component costs, there is not a lot left for profits and developing the next project.

Things sell for what the market will bear.
I have a TackTick compass that cost £220, there is a free app on my tablet that does the same job, but will the tablet be working when it's 5 years old?
A lot of people have thought of starting up in competition to the likes of Raymarine, only Tacktick seem to have done so.
They only stayed independent for a few years IIRC?
 
A bit like PCs, they are trying to hold station on price, but adding feature every new model.
Expensive? Yes, but the quantity sold versus the cost of development, testing, licensing and type approvals makes the margins quite thin really.
 
lw395 said:
It's possible to look at the accounts or even just the annual reports of a PLC, rather than making absurd comparisons with throwaway consumer products.
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Thank you for calling my comparison absurd. Absurdity is what I strive for on a daily basis. Being just a geek and not a financial or business type I am likely to achieve my absurdity goal every time I say anything about business. I leave looking at accounts and annual reports to those who know what they mean and where to find them. I just look at oscilloscopes, which are usually just in front of my nose.
 
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I believe it to be a number of factors, including the size of the market giving less manufacturing scale as well as the lack of interoperability between different manufacturer's equipment which NEMA was supposed to solve but hasn't truly done so. It is not easy to mix and match components from several different manufacturers and get them working seamlessly.

Also, the level of repeat purchases is low. I refitted my yacht about 12 years ago with Raymarine radar, C Series display and plotter, Wheel pilot and ST60 instruments. They all work well and if I want to get all the new capabilities Now available including integral AIS, wifi connectivity and remote display on tablets, I will have to replace a lot or buy lots of expensive interface kit therefore as it all works well i don't intend to.

Also unlike the software industry there is no annual maintenance fee to generate regular revenues.

I think the marine industry should look to the success of Android as a mobile phone OS and learn from it. It is open source and highly configurable and has taken something like 60% or more of the global market having come from nowhere 5 yrs ago. It could be argued it was contributory to putting Nokia, the then world leader, almost out of business.

I have been following the OpenCPN and Raspberry PI threads with great interest because I think Angus, Caido and others are onto something good and it could be the start os something really interesting which "mainstream" manufacturers may find they have to embrace in a few years
 
I don't think marine electronics are all that expensive, in real terms prices have dropped considerably.

Recent experience, AIS VHF with plotter came out at less than an IPad.

My first Transit navigator cost about £700 40 years ago and had a four line display, equivalent to about £5000 now!
 
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