running dogg wrote in :
wrote:
Degen 1108. Degen is already thinking about the high end market, since
with all the bells and whistles they want to put on the 1108 I doubt
it will be affordable to the average Chinese. I think that the Chinese
will eventually build high end receivers, either Degen and Tecsun will
build them or new companies will spring up that will specialize in
high end stuff. I'm sure that this will make Li apoplectic, but for
the rest of humanity it will be a positive development since the
Western (US, Europe, Japan) high end stuff has suffered from quality
control problems and lack of design originality for quite some time.
But Tecsun managed to work out all the QC problems with the Sat 800
(Ham 2000) and have gradually improved it. I'm sure that Degen will
eventually work out whatever bugs are in its radios and produce
quality radios. The Chinese seem to have the Chrysler and Microsoft
approach to product development-put something, anything out in the
market and fix bugs as they come up. Sure beats having to quality
check your own stuff with in house staff. The downside is that you
don't want to buy something that has been out for less than a couple
years.
I think that there are a lot of people in China who can afford a good,
decent desk shortwave radio, and that one of the drivers is getting
uncensored news from elsewhere (if you can get past the jamming). A more
selective radio with better filters will have better luck in general. I
believe the primary market of Tecsun and Degen is the chinese domestic
market, it's a big country, and shortwave is actually still pretty popular
there.
The secondary consideration for them is proving a decent product for export
by rebranding, such as Tecsun does with Eton. An option besides making a
deal with a company like Eton is to simply license a brand name, like GE,
such as many asian makers of consumer electronics do.