GRE: Dead or Alive?

[fdcaptjd]

Is GRE in or out of business?

I would like to purchase a PSR-800, and I notice the price is now well above the MSRP on the sites that claim to have them in stock.

What appears to be the company offers a $449.00 price, but is out of stock and has been for some time.

So, I just wonder what is going on.


Thanks,


JD

[TES]

Read:

GRE Information Thread

[detroit780]

Back in October they announced they were no longer producing scanners since they lost their plant in China. GRE's parent company in Japan went out of business at that point and the US arm had hopes of continuing once they found a new plant No word on their quest yet. As of now their products are in short supply.

Hopefully they can come back but who knows. I don't think it is as simple as finding a new plant. Since the parent company went out of business they would hold all the patents so it would be up to them to give them to the US arm, sell them to the US arm if they had money to buy them or sell them to someone else. The would also hold the rights to build under the GRE brand. No word from anyone yet but it may be more complicated or they may be dead. Only time will tell.

So for now all we know is they don't produce any scanners.

Originally Posted by fdcaptjd

Is GRE in or out of business?

I would like to purchase a PSR-800, and I notice the price is now well above the MSRP on the sites that claim to have them in stock.

What appears to be the company offers a $449.00 price, but is out of stock and has been for some time.

So, I just wonder what is going on.


Thanks,


JD

[fdcaptjd]

Thanks for the information.

I suspect things are more complex than they seem. Factory production of electronics products in China can be tooled up in days or weeks, so one could assume that the folks in Japan simply don't want to sell scanners anymore.

We will hope for Americans!

JD

[IowaGuy1603]

Originally Posted by fdcaptjd

Thanks for the information.

I suspect things are more complex than they seem. Factory production of electronics products in China can be tooled up in days or weeks, so one could assume that the folks in Japan simply don't want to sell scanners anymore.

We will hope for Americans!

JD

I don't' know if that is the fact or not-------i just wouldn't make that assumption

They are still servicing the equipment here in the US and are looking for a place to build new equipment.............I just don't' think they want to go back to China

[AirScan1]

I hought there was going be a gre factory here in usa ?

[IowaGuy1603]

Originally Posted by AirScan1

I hought there was going be a gre factory here in usa ?

Never have heard that.......................cost of labor would most likely make the scanner price out of range for most hobbyists

[radioman316]

Originally Posted by IowaGuy1603

Never have heard that.......................cost of labor would most likely make the scanner price out of range for most hobbyists

well, then, you might want to bring in the fat lady then because with what you said in mind, GRE will RIP

[GTO_04]

Originally Posted by AirScan1

I hought there was going be a gre factory here in usa ?

That is pure speculation. Don't hold your breath.

GTO_04

[IowaGuy1603]

Originally Posted by radioman316

well, then, you might want to bring in the fat lady then because with what you said in mind, GRE will RIP

there are hundreds of places they can get cheap labor in the far east...............and they will find a place ----or not

[Boatanchor]

I'd be very surpised if GRE, as a scanner manufacturer, bounces back from this.

You simply can't release some vague press release blaming the sudden and unforseen loss of you manufacturing plant and then just go 'offline' or underground for 6 months and then expect to bounce back.

The longer GRE stay quiet about this, the worse they are making it for themselves and the less likely they are to be back IMO.

People shouldn't underestimate the costs of producing a product like the PSR-800 or 900.
It typically costs a million $'s plus to tool up and bring a product like this to market. That is a hell of a lot of scanners that you have to sell, just to break even. Assuming the company makes $100 profit on each scanner sold, you would have to sell 10,000 scanners, just to recoup your R&D & tooling costs before you even started to make a profit.

I would be very surprised if GRE sold more than 3000-5000 of the PSR-800's.

However, bring a product to market, with some kind of manufacturing flaw, say a plastic fascia that looks like crap after a week and requires you to ship a replacement to every second owner and that $100 profit starts to dissapear very quikly.

Bottom line:

Producing digital scanners in particular, is a huge gamble for any manufacturer. Not only do you have to recover your own R&D costs, but each scanner sold has DVSI digital vocoder licensing fees that have to be paid. You have to incorporate these licensing costs into the price of each scanner sold, but at the same time, if you make the unit cost too high, you risk making them too expensive for the average Joe.

Like I said before, depending on profit margins, I would expect manufacturers of a digital scanner have to sell between 7,000 & 10,000 units to break even.

Why do you think Uniden is being so slow at releasing new models after the 396XT and 996XT? It has nothing to do with not having new ideas or technology on the drawing board or even at the prototype stage and everything to do with having to first sell enough of your legacy models to actually show a modest profit before you take that huge gamble again..

In the current economic environment, I would be very surprised if any manufacturer released a new 'digital' product because the chances of re-couping the R&D&T costs any time within 5 years is highly doubtful.

I would be pleasently surprised if I were wrong though

[Boatanchor]

As a manufacturer, you also have to take a gamble that your new product will stay relevent and competitive long enough to sell the required number of units. This is no mean feat for an expensive product, that sells relatively slowly like digital scanners.

If a competitor releases some superior product 6 months or even a couple of years after you release your new product, all of your sales may evaporate leaving you with large un-recovered costs.

A sad state of affairs, that really doesn't bode well for scanner manufacturers that have a very limited domestic and global market.

[Jimru]

Hi Boatanchor,

Very well put.

The funny thing is, in my opinion, none of the top of the line scanners are bought by "average Joe's".

Those of us that purchase these products are either dedicated hobbyists, people in public service or the news gathering business, etc.

So, as you have illustrated, there is not really enough of a market to justify the expenses.

If the average Joe did buy up these units, like they buy smart phones and DVD players, there would be plenty of profit to be had!

Nice explanations on your part, it sounds as if you have some experience in manufacturing!

[Boatanchor]

I'm afraid I don't have any inside knowledge about what is going on at GRE or Uniden. Everything I wrote is pure speculation on my part, but I do have a little knowledge about product development and marketing and I know that the vast majority of the costs in bringing a product to market occur before the item makes it to the production line. After production, in China, or elsewhere, there are additional costs associated with shipping, warehousing, marketing, distribution and product servicing/support. If you are a large organization, with numerous product lines, many of these post production costs can be apportioned across all of your other product lines such as cordless telephones & answering machines etc etc (economies of scale). For a small organization like GRE, with only a few product lines to apportion costs to, it makes it very hard, particularly in a market with overall declining sales.

My gut feeling is that GRE was probably a reasonably profitable company back in the 'analogue' days of the mid 2000's, when the company may have sold 10's of thousand of radios to Radio Shack and under it's own brand name, at reasonable profit margins. Nowadays, with R.S on the ropes and few if any Radio Shack scanners being sold, things have definitely turned pear shaped.

Sadly, I don't expect GRE as a scanner brand to reappear.

Uniden may be able to hold out a while longer, since they will effectively have no competition, but I'm betting that even they, at some point, will have to run the figures and wonder if it is worth continuing developing new products in such a small market segment.

I've felt for some time now that for Uniden to survive in the scanner market, it has to aggressively target markets outside of the U.S. Uniden needs to produce a software defined scanner, that has excellent front end RF performance (sensitivity & filtering etc) and do all demodulation at the software level.
This would allow different markets to load different firmware to decode different digital and analogue voice formats.

If end users could buy a basic AM & FM capable scanner, that has good RF performance for say $250 and then pay another $100 for each additional demodulation software package that they are interested in. That would be a winner combination.

Consumers in the States would buy the P25 phase 1 and phase 2 package for an additional $200.
People in Asia would pay $100 for the DMR suite and people in Europe would pay for the Tetra digital suite.

Ham Radio operators would pay $100 for the D-Star suite and maybe even another $50 for the SSB/CW software package. Ideally, the radio would have sufficient non-volatile ram to permanently store several different demodulation packages.

This is the future of radio communications. This is where it needs to go from here on in!

[Michael-SATX]

Psst, I'm surprised nobody is piling on that it is all part of a grand conspiracy to help snuff out scanners
China is not known for wanting information free flowing and neither are most big brother countries ;(
If this is the case, the powers that be can try having as much fun as their NOT having with gun control !

[jackj]

I am starting to wonder if our government might have had something to do with GRE's demise as well as Uniden's apparent reluctance to offer a Phase II scanner. My thought is that the DHS told manufacturers that offering a digital scanner for sale would be considered to be aiding terrorists. No "Grand Conspiracy to snuff out scanners" but maybe an attempt to limit their accountability.

[Jimru]

I'm sorry guys, but this theory of yours about the gov't having a hand in the demise of GRE and so on is just silly.

Boatanchor has given a very cogent and thorough explanation as best anyone can that is not actually working at either company.

This is all about business. If the numbers don't add up, it affects sales and the bottom line.

Period.

[Chauffeur6]

Originally Posted by jackj

I am starting to wonder if our government might have had something to do with GRE's demise as well as Uniden's apparent reluctance to offer a Phase II scanner. My thought is that the DHS told manufacturers that offering a digital scanner for sale would be considered to be aiding terrorists. No "Grand Conspiracy to snuff out scanners" but maybe an attempt to limit their accountability.

I needed a good laugh today, thanks!

[dgmaley]

Sadly, I don't expect GRE as a scanner brand to reappear

Unfortunately, I have to agree, but I also suspect they will not completely go away. History can show an example of what might happen. This has happened to many companies, but I am only going to mention one. Anyone remember a company called Standard Communications? They got aquired by Vertex which got aquired by Yaesu whick got aquired by Motorola.
Your future scanner might have a Moto/GRE label.

Here's a bit of radio history.
Motorola started out in the early 1900's building car radios. At the time, the most popolar home radio was built by Radiola. Since Motorola was building radios for motorcars they took a twist on Radiola's name and called themselves Motorola.

Dave...

[Jimru]

There is always the possibility that the Phoenix could rise from the ashes, eh?

That is a good thought to have.

Kinda like Regency Electronics, but they never did go back to manufacturing scanners.