Market Research in High End Market

What kind of research are you looking for? Now you've got me curious as well. Let me know what you find if you wouldn't mind. Thanks!

I do market research for a living. I doubt that anyone save perhaps Sony has done any research on the high end beyond warranty response cards and casual inquiry of the dealer channel.

I'd give anything to run a focus group with audiophiles!

The type of information I am looking for is high end sales figures. This is tricky because "high-end" can be defined in so many ways. One way would be to use companies that have an average component price of say $3000 or more (but the obvious question is why $3000). I would really like to know the total domestic and ROW market size for this "high end" industry. What are the average and ranges of sizes of companies, how many companies are in this group with sales of over $1 million per year. How long have companies been in business, how many employees do they have? I don't really care what the company is but I would love to see a breakdown (table) that described Company A, B, C, D etc in these terms (revenue, employees, yrs in business, # current products, avg life span of individual product). The more comprehensive the better. Keep in mind you asked what "I was looking for"--not that any of this is obtainable. In other industries there are very good independent market research companies that do just this--very comprehensive reports. These reports are expensive, but very useful. I know of no such thing in the audio industry.

Hi Abstract: Sony (marketing) Europe, allegedly, has such a value/volume report, from 1999. The definition of the hi-end market is made according to their own product category classification...

Research conducted in relation to their SACD and surrounding peripherals? I don't know. However, there *were* rumours (in 1999) about Sony entering the "hi-end" market -- so, the figures, if they really exist, must be encouraging.

Cheers!

As I thought, you are looking for what most of the mfgs will not disclose. Having worked in the industry for ~10 yrs( late 80s~90s) I can tell you qualitativly the following information: The market has gone through a lot of consolidation, especially in the last few years-Harmon Karden is the best example, but Klipsch has bought Aragon, and some others.... The industry can be divided into some managable groups that may help to get towards your answer. First are the Majors (mostly forgein)who dabble in High-end to maintain marquee, Sony, Philips, Marantz, Denon, Luxman and Harmon Kardon. The last is an interesting case as they have bought Madrigal, Mark Levinson, etc. As such, the majors are large firms where high end is but a part of their revenue. The second group might be the High-end majors, ARC, C-J, Krell. These companies have fluctuated between being very small to over 100 employees. most of these have been in the over 1 million in sales, but not on a consistant basis. Some runners-up in this catagory could be Cary, Martin Logan, Wilson, VAC and Theil. Most of the companies that make High-end equipment are small, 1~5 employees, w/ sales ~500K+/-. They are very sensitive to market conditions, and usually grow or shrink based upon reviews and show sucess.
I am constantly amazed at the number of companies that appear each year with new products. Most of these ar ebuilt in runs of 100 or so, and unless they sell quickly, that may be the last 100 made. This is one of the few industries that can be runn sucessfully out of a garage for years, some still are!