Kenwood to make DMR radios

phillmobile · #1 (**permalink**) 01-04-2013, 10:25 PM

Wireless | Kenwood to produce dPMR and DMR radios alongside Nexedge in 2013

bswst501 · #2 (**permalink**) 01-05-2013, 12:58 PM

Wonder when this will make it to the states...

N9NRA · #3 (**permalink**) 01-06-2013, 8:57 PM

Ya know, given that hams are playing around with DMR (AKA MotoTURBO), i`d be kinda intrested to see just where this ends up going, just to see what happens. Might be worth watching

. N9NRA

Git-R-Done · #4 (**permalink**) 01-06-2013, 9:05 PM

Headlines now...Motorola Vs. Kenwood for the DMR championship belt and crown.

rapidcharger · #5 (**permalink**) 01-07-2013, 9:07 AM

My prediction is both in the same radio.

mmckenna · #6 (**permalink**) 01-07-2013, 12:20 PM

Probably won't happen in the North American market any time soon.

DMR has a 90% share of the market in Europe, thanks to the ETSI. Trying to market NXDN against that was a losing proposition. Kenwood realized this and chose to adopt the ETSI DMR standards in Europe. NXDN, for comparison, only has a 9% market share in Europe.

NXDN has a much larger market share in the US, somewhere close to 49% in the private digital LMR market.

MotoTrbo uses the ETSI standard and was designed for the European market and to compete there. Not sure what kind of market share that has in North America. That would be interesting to know.

Word I'm hearing from Kenwood is they don't really have any plans to market DMR here in the US. Unless things drastically change, of course, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

MaineWhacker · #7 (**permalink**) 01-07-2013, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mmckenna

Probably won't happen in the North American market any time soon.

MotoTrbo uses the ETSI standard and was designed for the European market and to compete there. Not sure what kind of market share that has in North America. That would be interesting to know.

Just going by each manufaturer's claims, Moto celebrated their 1 Millionth TRBO radio last year, and Kenwood is saying it's just sold it's 500,000th, I'd say Moto has the lion's share.

rapidcharger · #8 (**permalink**) 01-07-2013, 2:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mmckenna

NXDN has a much larger market share in the US, somewhere close to 49% in the private digital LMR market.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around that figure.
I guess the database on RR is not much of an indication because I see very little NXDN in comparison.

mmckenna · #9 (**permalink**) 01-07-2013, 2:59 PM

The 49% number is looking at Non-public safety digital LMR. Icom, Kenwood, Ritron, etc. compared to MotoTrbo.

rapidcharger · #10 (**permalink**) 01-07-2013, 5:21 PM

I'm still surprised by it.
I'm also looking at a lot more TRBO gear ending up on the second hand market and I hear a lot more DMR than NXDN and I'm even in Kenwood's hometown. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying one is better than the other but I thought this would play out similar to the ANI signalling formats where Kenwood and Icom start boasting about models that do MDC too.

And since public safety is a growing segment, you can bet there will be a lot of agencies looking for an interoperability solution.

mmckenna · #11 (**permalink**) 01-07-2013, 5:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaineWhacker

Just going by each manufaturer's claims, Moto celebrated their 1 Millionth TRBO radio last year, and Kenwood is saying it's just sold it's 500,000th, I'd say Moto has the lion's share.

You are overlooking the other NXDN manufacturers, Ritron, Icom, etc. A lot of the railroads have settled on NXDN as the future digital choice. While they are running narrow band analog now, the radios are still out there.

And, is Motorola talking about sales worldwide, or just in North America when they say 1 million sold?

phillmobile · #12 (**permalink**) 01-10-2013, 1:55 PM

I live in the uk and to me its down to this, the delaers are selling mototrbo radios much cheaper than nexedge say 100 dollars cheaper, thats the answer i guess.

Even i a kenwood man see the advantage of a mototrbo repeater that can do 2 things at once.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mmckenna

Probably won't happen in the North American market any time soon.

DMR has a 90% share of the market in Europe, thanks to the ETSI. Trying to market NXDN against that was a losing proposition. Kenwood realized this and chose to adopt the ETSI DMR standards in Europe. NXDN, for comparison, only has a 9% market share in Europe.

NXDN has a much larger market share in the US, somewhere close to 49% in the private digital LMR market.

MotoTrbo uses the ETSI standard and was designed for the European market and to compete there. Not sure what kind of market share that has in North America. That would be interesting to know.

Word I'm hearing from Kenwood is they don't really have any plans to market DMR here in the US. Unless things drastically change, of course, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

mmckenna · #13 (**permalink**) 01-10-2013, 6:30 PM

Yeah, the 2 paths in one box is a selling point. We looked at going with MotoTrbo at work, but they didn't have a radio that covered our frequencies. The other concern was that when one repeater went down, it took down 2 channels, instead of one. It's a pretty nice product though. I liked the ones we tried out.

I think the $100 difference is more a dealer thing. Seeing the actual dealer costs for Kenwood radios will show you that the dealers make a lot of profit off of each radio. Dropping the price by $100usd for radios in this category still leaves some profit.

Should be interesting to see how Kenwood does once they start rolling these radios out.