Profit? I think I'd characterize it as survival.
I don't see many audio manufacturers with personal jets and sailing in yachts. Back when these guys bent over backwards, I suspect revenue and profits were much better.
If a manufacturer is going to live on small profits and low volume, then in order to cover the cost of future warranty shipping, you'd have to amortize that across all sales. Which means you need to charge more money per unit.
But with small volume, it's hard to have a good predictive model on what fully burdened warranty costs will be. And without regional representation, covering the cost of shipping regardless of where the customer lives, that's a tough proposition too.
LG has an advantage here. They're huge, they have regional support, they sell in large volume.
In a world where travelers will choose one airline over another because a ticket is 5 dollars more expensive, I imagine that manufacturers increasingly need to compete on price at the front end rather than sell on the promise of future customer service experience.
I don't see many audio manufacturers with personal jets and sailing in yachts. Back when these guys bent over backwards, I suspect revenue and profits were much better.
If a manufacturer is going to live on small profits and low volume, then in order to cover the cost of future warranty shipping, you'd have to amortize that across all sales. Which means you need to charge more money per unit.
But with small volume, it's hard to have a good predictive model on what fully burdened warranty costs will be. And without regional representation, covering the cost of shipping regardless of where the customer lives, that's a tough proposition too.
LG has an advantage here. They're huge, they have regional support, they sell in large volume.
In a world where travelers will choose one airline over another because a ticket is 5 dollars more expensive, I imagine that manufacturers increasingly need to compete on price at the front end rather than sell on the promise of future customer service experience.