Review on techcrunch.com + info about Devialet sales

[IanG-UK]

The revenue equates to about $4300 per unit, which appears a little low, even allowing for D-Premier upgrades? And that's assuming upgrades count as units.

As for the "review". The reviewer mentions " I have not heard the Phantom with my own two ears", oh well.......

Well the UK prices are £4k, £6k and £11k with VAT, so £3.25k, £5k and £9k ex VAT. Most sales will be a mix of 120s and 200s with a few 250s - so that is probably an average of £4.5k to £5k.

And they are an average ex-factory at $4.3k or £2.6k or so. That will be about right allowing for two markups, distributor and dealer.

In fact I hear that the Devialet mark ups are tighter than the normal high end stuff: those mark ups, if they involve both distributor and retailer, probably equate to a more than doubling of price, ex-VAT.

---

I was told by a very reliable source that towards the end of the year the "run rate" was approaching 200 per week (hence 10,000 per annum). That 3,500 might be a "year ending July 2014" or whatever.

I hope the sales volumes are at the levels you suggest. If they're generating very significant revenues and, more importantly, profits from the existing amps then Devialet are probably less likely to neglect their long-term customers and focus instead on Les Phantomistes Nouveaux...

i was discussing this with Guillaume. Turnover of $15m or £9m will include manufacturing costs which, if the 250 "profit free" upgrade cost is anything to go by, will be around £3m.

At upper quartile French salaries, which Devialet may be paying for top people, direct employment costs even for just for 60 IT/software engineers will be £2.5m; plus other people costs including the sales guys, employment taxes, property, systems and marketing costs and the £6m "gross added value" soon disappears.

This may explain the haste to launch Phantom and Dialog at the (hopefully temporary) expense of existing customer support.