4 Apr 2013

Japanese Yen and radio gear prices

Today alone the pound-yen exchange rate has improved by over 4% in favour of the pound: basically Japanese goods are 4% cheaper than yesterday. UK dealers, please note: your customers are expecting product prices for Japanese radios to FALL please in the coming days and not rise!

The yen-pound exchange rate is now around 23% better (for purchasers of Japanese equipment) than a year ago, so some VERY good deals should be expected on Yaesu, Icom and Kenwood products.

7 comments:

G0FTD said...

No - it's not as easy as saying that the Pound/Yen has changed because most international trade is
done in *US dollars*.

US Dollars rule in international trade, trust me - I DO know ;-)

73 de Andy


Roger G3XBM said...

That may be so Andy, but I cannot see the justification for a 10% increase when even the dollar-yen exchange rate has moved favourably for those purchasing wholesale from Japan.

We are getting a raw deal.

Roger G3XBM said...

http://www.indexmundi.com/xrates/image.aspx?c1=JPY&c2=USD&days=365

To prove my point see the above graph. About 17% improvement in yen-dollar exchange rate over last 12 months Andy.

G0FTD said...

I suppose it all depends upon what
arrangements are being used.

Either that or the dealers are
trying to make up for lost sales
elsewhere by hiking the price up.

Unfortunately they will just end up
pricing themselves out of the market just like they have done with handheld rigs.

As an aside, maybe the Japanese
are hiking the prices out of
desperation. I was on a waiting list for several months for my
replacement FT817 recently and
I've seen massive price hikes on
non radio stuff from Japan post
Fukushima.

I had massive rows with some of
my professional colleagues in
Japan over price hikes that
ended up in lost trade because of
it (nowt to do with radio).

It's been very difficult to tell
the Japanese that putting up prices
to make up for other lossses will
not work. I proved them right.

73 de Andy

Anonymous said...

I saw a recent YouTube video of some guys touring ham shops in Akihabara the other day (wish I could find the link again)... Radio price stickers on the shelf in Akihabara were 20-25% LOWER than in the U.S.

So take that into consideration and compare with the UK prices - raw deal indeed. But I think the VAT in the UK is 20-25% nowadays right? Might that may be partially to blame?

The Great DK said...

Not sure it will kill off the FT817 - but maybe the Chinese will force the established players to rethink pricing - http://www.ae5x.com/blog/2013/04/08/new-cwssb-all-band-qrp-rig-not-a-kit/

M6DKZ

Anonymous said...

The sticker-prices in Akihabara may be lower, but in general, quite often you get gear for the Japanese market only. For instance, photo-camera's only have Japanese language. For "international" models, you pay handsomely more.