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Minelab Record Sales


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Edited Transcript of CDA.AX earnings conference call or presentation 18-Feb-21 12:01am GMT

”The star of the show again has been Minelab. Minelab has shown exceptional growth.”

”...we spend a significant amount of money each year developing new products to develop unique and protectable IP. That strategy has been absolutely sensational for us over the last 3 or 4 years and I think, marked by the performance in Minelab. Minelab, if we go back 3 years ago, was really heavily dependent on gold with 1 product into 3 African markets. Today, we have a product lineup that is much, much more significant. So we have 3 major gold platforms selling into dozens of countries in Africa and around the world. With respect to our consumer business, I think I've been quoted previously as saying that the consumer business over time, we think, has the potential to overtake our gold business. And you can see some signs of that happening already. If you go back 3 years, we were doing about between $2 million and $3 million a month in consumer. By making the massive investment that we've made over the last 3 to 5 years, we now have world-leading products at every price category in the consumer market. And our consumer business is now a circa $8 million to $10 million a month business. So significant growth in the last 3 years, which has really helped offset some of the perceived risks that the market had around gold. So we have a much, much more balanced portfolio and we're seeing the benefits of that now in a much, much more stable and growing Metal Detection business.”

“The GPZ -- GPX 6000, rather, is a brand-new product that will be revolutionary, we believe, in high-end gold detecting. It's a product that's been purpose-built for the African market. It's plug and play. It's simple to use, lightweight, collapsible, waterproof and at a price point that sits below the GPZ but is still very attractive for us. We will launch that product -- we have launched that product, that we will see meaningful volume come through in Q4.”

“We continue to invest at record levels in our business. We've got more engineers than ever before. Some of the slight reduction in dollar value of spend in this half was really just due to the timing of our projects and not having as much external cost in our business over the half year. But still investing at very strong levels and have quite a strong pipeline of projects about to come to the market like the GPX 6000 that's Donald mentioned.”

”Look, just firstly, on metal detection. You mentioned during the call that recreational is now an $8 million to $10 million a month business for you. But roughly what sort of global market share do you think that now implies for Codan in recreational? And has there been any competitive responses worth noting over the last sort of 6 to 12 months since you launched products such as the VANQUISH?

Good question, Ronan. I think we -- I think in the last call, we spent some time trying to educate the market that we weren't the biggest in the consumer space at that time. I think, Garrett, we believe, were bigger than us. They had a bigger share, particularly in America. I think we are fast-changing that market share dynamic. So at $12 million for last month, we know that we'd be #1 in the market now and we would have the biggest share. But that still wouldn't give us what I would call a monopolistic position. It's certainly not as strong as our gold position, which we estimate at between 80% and 90% share. We're probably moving towards closer to 50%. So we're probably coming up from 35% to 50% would be the latest information we have. The objective is to try and keep play into some of our competitors with some of the new product releases that we have coming and try and get up towards the 60%, 70% as time goes on over the next couple of years. I think it's been difficult for people to respond. I think we saw Garrett come out with a product to respond to the VANQUISH and they quickly almost withdrawn it from the market to rehash it because it just hasn't been successful. So people are now panicking. I think they're trying to do things with their products that the architecture of the design just won't allow. So we've taken comparative products in-house. We've looked at their intents at multifrequency, and quite frankly, the physics don't stack up. So they would have to go and completely reengineer their platforms in order to compete with products like EQUINOX and VANQUISH, which we don't expect them to be able to do. So we've kind of got them on the run.”

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1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

(Quoted from Codan, not Steve's words:)

"I think we saw Garrett come out with a product to respond to the VANQUISH and they quickly almost withdrawn it from the market to rehash it because it just hasn't been successful. So people are now panicking. I think they're trying to do things with their products that the architecture of the design just won't allow. So we've taken comparative products in-house. We've looked at their intents at multifrequency, and quite frankly, the physics don't stack up. So they would have to go and completely reengineer their platforms in order to compete with products like EQUINOX and VANQUISH, which we don't expect them to be able to do. So we've kind of got them on the run.”  (Emphasis by GB_Amateur)

The insights we get from afar....  Makes you wonder why Codan/Minelab 'panicked' with their counter-advertising video aimed directly at the Garrett Apex that was released last fall.

 

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2 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

The insights we get from afar....  Makes you wonder why Codan/Minelab 'panicked' with their counter-advertising video aimed directly at the Garrett Apex that was released last fall.

 

Ha ha.  I remember that one.  Yellow beanie cap dude talking about Michael Jordan with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car (presuming it was targeted at a US audience - figured they could have sprung for an  American variant of an F-150, at least that would have resonated more credibly with the target audience :laugh:).   But I don't think they panicked as much as used their vast resources to go for the jugular as any ruthless market leader worth their salt would do.  Take nothing for granted.  Unlike the actors in the truck, Minelab is not fooling around.  World domination of the detector market is their goal. 

But frankly, I found the message to be laughable not just from the production but from the assertion via the message that the Ace Apex is some sort of complex machine with excessive bells and whistles.  C'mon.  Even compared to the Vanquish it is pretty straight forward and I don't think it contains any unnecessary fluff.  In fact, I would have to think hard about taking the Vanquish over the Apex, quite frankly, based on the feature set.  If for nothing else, at least you can ground balance the Apex and operate it in single frequency when appropriate.  Plus, it just looks better. 

ML as the client  also lacks self-awareness.  I wonder if ML realizes that the angle the ad agency chose to pursue via Apex also directly applies to the Equinox.  Does that mean ML considers Equinox users to be gadget-obsessed doofuses and the Equinox is overly complex and bloated?  I think not.  But one could read that into it.  Mineleab is indeed ruthless from a business standpoint and they have the engineering chops bar none, but jeez, their marketing team needs up their game and actually get to know their intended audience.  Get a clue.

 

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2 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

World domination of the detector market is their goal.

We've seen that kind of thing before, in other areas.  Not exactly a comforting thought....

I've always been for the underdog.  Boston Celtics, New York Yankees, Green Bay Packers (note to non-North Americans -- all are professional USA sports teams which dominated at some time or other during the 20th Century); I pulled for their opponents every time.  50+ years later and I haven't changed that aspect of my character.

(I was going to say a bit more but like everyone I need to respect Steve's rules about negative comments in sub-forums which are specifically meant for detector brands.  Hopefully I haven't already stepped over the line in this thread.)

P.S.  I will say one positive thing about Minelab, or better yet just point to my sidebar.

<--

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Minelab was the underdog. The once “industry leaders” who are now the underdogs, have been more concerned with pocketing profits than investing in the future of the industry. It is hard for me to support people who do not bother to support themselves, when Minelab has been an obvious slow moving train coming at them for over a decade.

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It would be interesting to know the number of units per model sold by each brand/manufacturer. Then we would have a clear idea of the winners . 

Concerning ML , their last 2 VLF detectors , the Equinox and the Vanquish , are very good machines . They have done a very good job , so it is logical and normal that their business is going well ... 

 

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I've known Minelab/Codan was a strong player in the metal detecting industry and I thought about purchasing some shares after I went to the last Worldwide Conference held in Italy.  It was at $3.20 AUD and today it is at $15AUD.  Guess I missed the boat again.  Early on when I was selling Minelab detectors the shares were less than $1 AUD.

Guess I should take some of my profits and roll it into their stock.  I think with the GPX-6000 just coming out, there is still room to make a few bucks.

Does anyone here on DP have any CDA stock and does it pay dividends?

Thanks for sharing Steve.

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2 hours ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

Guess I should take some of my profits and roll it into their stock.

Or invest in an extra trip or two to your prime hunting grounds with a new GPX6000....

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