competition in africa

Missing from Codan's statements is information on the role of legitimate competition in the catastrophic decline in gold detector sales in Africa. One can hope for a new gold rush or a reduction of tension and unrest to grow,the market, but what evidence is there that the overall market isn,t in fact growing.

The information I have seen would pretty well indicate that Minelab has been nearly completely displaced by a combination of counterfeit copies of their own and competitors detectors along with good old competition from a supplier whose products are "good enough" at a fraction of the price.

Minelab's flagship detector is optimized for a lone seeker who must find the maximum of gold with the minimum of labor, since his own "manpower" is all he deploys. It is no doubt the perfect detector for the lone Australian Prospector.

The situation in Africa is quite different, where abundant cheap labor wants a cheap,tool to tell them where gold lies and then out with the digging tools and move massive amounts of dirt. In this scenario a $600 detector which is sensitive tithe smallest gold bits is good enough.

The market is now dominated by First Texas Corporation's Technetics and Fisher gold detectors. Their sales are booming. Minelab,s sales have apparently collapsed due to the highly unfavorable match between detector cost and the job to be done.