Posts: 384
Threads: 18
Joined: Sep 2010
Quote:
A while back one of the distributors that had information about new calculators said that it would be a limited run of 10k pieces.
Can anyone confirm that the 15c LE will be limited to 10k units?
Just wondering if I'll actually be able to get one if they are going to be this rare.
I suppose I'm a little skeptical of that number as the
best case gross sales would be US$1M given such a quantity
limit. But I'll take a stab here.. I'd be surprised if
the BOM cost for the unit itself exceeds US$30 and I'd
expect considerably less given the 12C+ production volumes
can be leveraged. Add to that manufacturing, packaging
and distribution costs, let's lowball HP's cost of putting
it in a reseller's hands at US$40/unit. Assuming the
suggested street price of $100 and a typical retail markup
of 40%, the retailer's cost would be $71.43 and HPs profit
$31.43 x 10k units weighing in at under US$320K. I can't
believe this is enough to begin covering the up front engineering
costs even if we push that number around considerably. And in
the ideal case shopping.hp.com is doing all of the "retailing"
that profit gets bean-counted elsewhere.
So I'd expect an advertised 10K unit limited run might if
anything be that of a given cosmetic version of the 15c+,
after which further volumes would be needed to derive
realistic revenue from the effort.
Just my two cents.
