Hamradiostuffing
Member
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2005
- Messages
- 322
Has anyone noticed the price jump on Icom's IC-706 MKIIG? At most dealers the pricing was averaging $769.00 and now the prices have jumped to $950.00 -- nearly a $200.00 dollar increase. I contacted HRO and was given partial truth for the reasoning behind the jump. I think the 706 Mark IIG has been popular, and has also been a lot more expensive. The radio has stayed for quite some time in a reasonable range, but now has started a sharp rise up.
The reason I was given for the price gouge was the Japanese Yen is higher compared to the American dollar. By the way, is true but only by 12.5%, and that increase has taken nine months to rise. In this case the Radio should have only risen to around the $850.00 range. With our Ham community constantly battling to grow and maintain itself against an ever growing younger population more willing to go to the Internet. These Ham radio suppliers seem to be willing to price themselves and us out of business. If the reasoning is the Japanese Yen, why have other radios of Japanese make not made the price jump???
The real answer in my opinion is that the ICOM Japan made this decision. If you go to the ICOM Japan website and look at the annual report which may yield a clue. It appears that the ICOM America’s profits maybe be down. The report for this year has not been posted, and I would be curious to see what happened.
ICOM has an announcement posted on there website that in the commercial arena that they are partnering with Kenwood. Yaesu clearly has the same exchange rate issue as ICOM yet there products have not gone up. This alone would lead me to believe that was an internal decision with ICOM itself. It sounds fishy to me.
I am sure Yaesu would enjoy your business.
The reason I was given for the price gouge was the Japanese Yen is higher compared to the American dollar. By the way, is true but only by 12.5%, and that increase has taken nine months to rise. In this case the Radio should have only risen to around the $850.00 range. With our Ham community constantly battling to grow and maintain itself against an ever growing younger population more willing to go to the Internet. These Ham radio suppliers seem to be willing to price themselves and us out of business. If the reasoning is the Japanese Yen, why have other radios of Japanese make not made the price jump???
The real answer in my opinion is that the ICOM Japan made this decision. If you go to the ICOM Japan website and look at the annual report which may yield a clue. It appears that the ICOM America’s profits maybe be down. The report for this year has not been posted, and I would be curious to see what happened.
ICOM has an announcement posted on there website that in the commercial arena that they are partnering with Kenwood. Yaesu clearly has the same exchange rate issue as ICOM yet there products have not gone up. This alone would lead me to believe that was an internal decision with ICOM itself. It sounds fishy to me.
I am sure Yaesu would enjoy your business.
