Craig, although purely anecdotal, I noticed...
...that two of my local BestBuy stores (including a local BestBuy "megastore") managed to
sell out of SanDisk 64 MB cards sold last Friday at a price of $29.99 each. This was
essentially a give-a-way as I see it. What it does mean, however, is that the start-up
costs for going digital are way down. You can buy a nice 2.1 megapixel camera for under
$300.00 and a decent 3.3 megapixel camera for under $400.00 and not worry too much about
the extras like media. Last year at retail 64 MB CF was selling for over $100 going
into the holidays. That was an impediment to a digital camera purchase. I would hope
we will witness an acceleration in digital camera sales as we go from sales to adventurous
digital nerds (myself included here), hobbyists and prosumers to average consumers.
At most school, work, and social functions I have been to in the last few months it is rare
that one sees a digital camera. While travelling and on vacation I have been impressed
with the adoption of digital cameras. Those able to travel presumably have greater
discretionary income, which accounts for the difference. Anyway, as Eli once said, we are
on Main Street, but we just turned the block. We still have a very large untapped market.
The only damper right now is the job situation. This past Monday AM I had 7 clinic patients
scheduled, of whom 3 had recently been laid-off. Two were middle management people and a third
was on an assembly line at a company he told me was "recession proof" earlier this year.
Okay, again only anecdotal information, but I think many consumers will be cautious with
big ticket purchases including spendy digital toys.
Most of these purchases cannot be postponed forever. I belive they are just too
attractive for most to resist indefinitely.
Other Parallel Developments
BTW, my father-in-law e-mailed me this week that they are installing broadband connections
in his neighborhood in northern Sweden. This is being promoted by the local telecom
and partially subsidized by the local school district. I do think it is a sign of the penetration
of broadband access. Broadband enables Internet users and heightens the on-line experience.
This can only be good for companies like SNDK.
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