Minelab VS Minelab

[IDXMonster]

I said hundreds OR thousands per month - not “hundreds of thousands” per month.

That was my estimate of what the total sales of gold detectors at the height of the gold rush in the last years was in Africa. That is the “drug rush” which shot profits of the manufacturers through the roof in the mid 2000’s. Now apparently it has slowed down to “replacement” levels. Bad news for everybody - except maybe Minelab who have sold lots of GPZ7000’s in the last 2 years.

I base my estimates on the only public info on the subject. Since Codan (who owns Minelab) is a corporation - they have to report to stockholders. Google their annual reports for the last 5 years - you will see how theirs profits rise and fall with African gold seeking and the resulting detector sales.

Their PI machines did well, now the GPZ does well, but selling VLF gold machines into that market against the established Gold Bug 2 and Gold Bug Pro Detectors is tough. We will see how that goes in ‘18 and beyond.

What they really want is a light PI detector with better capability than the TDI and lower weight and battery demand than the GPX for about $1k. Sadly no such machine exists.

My opinions only - of course.

But compared to that market - for gold machines - we are peanuts.

Sorry about that Rick. That’s why I failed speed reading class! Yes,it would make sense,especially on the GOLD side,that we would be a pretty small market....
Carry on...