Minelab Now Selling Models Made In China

[Steve Herschbach]

22 minutes ago, fogrider said:

I don't care where my next detector is made, as long as it's good quality, comes with a decent warranty, and is supported well by the manufacturer.

It’s no different than buying an IPhone designed by Apple in California and made in China. In this case Minelab designs detectors but farms the manufacture out to others. This is not unusual nor a hit on them per se. I agree with the previous poster. However, many people in this forum can attest that the quality is not what they expected from Minelab in years past. The 6000 rollout was flat out embarrassing the number of issues that occurred. And support? It’s been spotty at best in the U.S. Good in some years, terrible in others.

Interesting that on Amazon, on Minelabs website, nor in the manual, is there any warranty statement for the X-Terra Voyager.

[Digalicious]

I don't think the Voyager is using Minelab technology. Reason being, the video I posted in which the Voyager is missing deep targets, that Simplex Lite could hit even with a much smaller coil on it.

Or maybe the tester had a bad unit? Or maybe it's Minelab technology, but extremely neutered.

[Steve Herschbach]

It's just a 5.82 kHz single frequency detector. It's not using anybody's technology per se. People have been using this tech for decades and anyone can pop one out without fear of patent violation. Bounty Hunter by another name. You get what you pay for and for $149 I'd not expect too much.

[cudamark]

3 hours ago, fogrider said:

I don't care where my next detector is made, as long as it's good quality, comes with a decent warranty, and is supported well by the manufacturer.

 

 

That's a problem many of us have.......not knowing where our hard-earned money goes, and what it buys. With some consumer goods, we have little or no choice, but, when we do, think about who is getting that money, and what are they doing with it. Damn if I want to support our enemies by funding their military to point weapons to me, my family, and my friends.

[phrunt]

There isn't much that is not made in China, and even though they've been manufacturing in Malaysia you can bet your left eyeball a majority of the components are from China and being assembled in Malaysia and all the shafts, housings, screens, batteries will be all from China.  If they want to increase profits perhaps in these low-end machines with little fear of anyone borrowing the technology as its basically public domain for the Voyager it made a lot of sense to go with China manufacturing so they could get the detector out to market quickly.  The detector cloners will have little interest in the technology used it in, they're already making superior detectors themselves.   Regardless of if this detector was made in USA, Australia, Malalysia or where ever it would be a simple machine to clone as they can already make a VLF of equal specifications themselves with little trouble.

China can make extremely high-end products, and it can also make a lot of cheap and nasty stuff and that tends to be the stuff they sell a lot of, why? Because people want to buy it, they love cheap stuff.  

Many big companies are now moving manufacturing out of China and into India, it's becoming the new China with cheaper Manufacuring again as the Chinese are now getting higher wages with a growing middle class.

Even my old GPX 4500 that was made in Australia was assembled in Australia from parts from China, that's just how it is, Australia doesn't make electronic components.

To think the Chinese manufacturers can't keep company secrets is just wrong too, China make virtually all Telsas, and all of their parts, they're also the biggest manufacturer of electric vehicles in the world with their BYD company making the most electric cars of any manufacturer yet BYD isn't using Telsta's technology they stole by the country manufacturing Telsla's, they made their own.  

Almost all Apple products are made in China, many of the large manufacturers use China successfully without their secrets being revealed.

This move isn't at all a surprise, it's going to be more of a surprise if they move manufacturing of the higher end detectors to China too but maybe they should, if you ask me the quality that they have produced in recent years is terrible, and it must be affecting their bottom line with all of the faulty detectors and coils they've been selling, from drowned Noxes to faulty 6000's and their coils, I can only imagine the losses they've taken due to quality problems, as times gone by they've probably had to do at least one warranty job of some form for every GPX 6000 sold in the first year and a half or so and that hurts profits and reputation.  They've also had a lot of stock issues, with the current manufacturing facility unable to keep up with demand, product has been very hard to get, low stock of new detectors during their peak selling time when a new product, coils that take forever to get to market and even then, are in limited supply.

The Voyager might just be a test run for a new manufacturing partner and from the outside looking in, they need a new partner as the current one isn't working.

[phrunt]

4 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

 

This is very interesting, it's the first time I've had any idea of how many metal detectors they actually sell, and that's a significant number, interesting they picked the Vanquish for the model to display on this, not something like the GPX 6000, I think we can all guess why, these cheaper coin and jewellery detectors are the big sellers and it seems since the Equinox they worked out they can also be the biggest profit makers too, even though they're priced a lot lower.

[Steve Herschbach]

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

This is very interesting, it's the first time I've had any idea of how many metal detectors they actually sell, and that's a significant number, interesting they picked the Vanquish for the model to display on this, not something like the GPX 6000, I think we can all guess why, these cheaper coin and jewellery detectors are the big sellers and it seems since the Equinox they worked out they can also be the biggest profit makers too, even though they're priced a lot lower.

“Since December 2009, the Codan Group’s manufacturing service provider, Plexus Corp, a US company, situated in Penang, Malaysia has been responsible for the majority of Minelab’s worldwide metal detector production. Minelab is proud of its association with its outsource partner in Malaysia. Genuine Minelab metal detectors are exclusively manufactured by Minelab in Australia and by Plexus Corp, USA in the Malaysian facility.”

So December 2009 to October 2020 about 11 years and Plexus does make pretty much all the Minelab detectors in that time frame. So average of 91,000 detectors a year of all models.

[phrunt]

Profit after tax for Minelab of 39.8m in 2018, 45.7 million in 2019, 64 million in 2020, 90.2 million in 2021, 100.5 million in 2022, 65.5 million in 2023 in Australian dollars.

Do some maths and you can work out their average profit per detector sold, but at 64 million in 2020 the profit was 703 AUD per detector averaged out assuming 91.000 were sold that year, obviously the years fluctuate on sales but someone good at maths and willing to spend the time could break it down using annual reports as to how much profit they actually make per detector sold on average over that time frame of 1 million detectors in that many years.  Obviously GPZ's and GPX's would skew the results with extremely high profit vs something like a Go-Find with far lower profits, probably hundreds of times lower profits.

It looks to me like they make a pretty tidy profit for the number of units sold.

[Gerry in Idaho]

On 11/21/2023 at 11:36 PM, Doc said:

LOL.  They started calling Gerry, and Rob Allison and myself Minelab Legacy Dealers.  That alone sounds like we are outdated.

I looked all over my body when I took a shower, and I'll be darned if I can find an expiration date, but who knows?

Doc

Doc, The last time I checked my body,  I had so many Minelab cuts, bruises and battle scares, I was afraid to look at myself in the mirror 🪞. They Minelab already has our names on the Wall of Flame..  They're waiting to burn 🔥 it.

No worries, I still have my award. The only problem is nobody currently working at Minelab USA even knows about it. 

I should have known the writing on the wall when I was presented this extremly rare, prestigious and valuable award at the Banquet.  I purchased over 1 million dollars in detectors in 1 fiscal year from 1 manufacturer (Minelab). Kellyco and I were the only ones.

This beauty is my reward.  No free truck, no free week in Hawaii, no free TV. Not even a free GPX-5000.  Just a piece of glass with my name on it. 

That folks is what you get for buying over $1,000,000.00 of Minelab detectors.  laughing all the way to the bank.

Oh well, at least for a while I was pretty well known across the industry.  Now, just a more wise senior talking about the good ol days. 

It was fun though, you, AZO, Rob, Stu, and a few others.  Most aren't even around in the game anymore.  Kinda sad to see. 

[Doc]

9 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

No they are not. And I would bet they do not own a facility in China either. They still do some assembly in Australia and Ireland but manufacturing is mainly farmed out to Plexus, a U.S. based company, and manufactured in the Plexus Riverside facility in Penang, Malaysia.

“Since December 2009, the Codan Group’s manufacturing service provider, Plexus Corp, a US company, situated in Penang, Malaysia has been responsible for the majority of Minelab’s worldwide metal detector production. Minelab is proud of its association with its outsource partner in Malaysia. Genuine Minelab metal detectors are exclusively manufactured by Minelab in Australia and by Plexus Corp, USA in the Malaysian facility.”

From http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/68/Plexus-Corporation.html:

“Plexus was incorporated in Wisconsin in 1979 and began operations in 1980. The company was founded by Peter Strandwitz, John Nussbaum, and a group of other entrepreneurs, interested in a venture to design and build computer circuit boards by contract. Located in the eastern Wisconsin city of Neenah, on Lake Winnebago, the new company found the bulk of their early work through contracts with IBM.”

Plexus Corp.
One Plexus Way 
Neenah, WI 54956

• Public Company
• Incorporated:1979
• Employees:3,150
• Sales:$492.4 million (1999)
• Stock Exchanges:NASDAQ
• Ticker Symbol:PLXS

From https://www.plexus.com/en-us/news/utc-aerospace-systems-recognizes-plexus-with-utc-s:

“NEENAH, WI – December 7, 2017 - Plexus (NASDAQ: PLXS) a global leader in providing design and development, manufacturing, supply chain and aftermarket services, announced today that UTC Aerospace Systems has recognized the Plexus Riverside facility in Penang, Malaysia with UTC Supplier Gold status. UTC Aerospace Systems is one of the world’s largest suppliers of technologically advanced aerospace and defense products.
 
UTC Supplier Gold status program recognizes suppliers for world-class, integrated supply chain performance. To achieve Supplier Gold status, suppliers must achieve zero escapes (quality rejections), 100% on-time delivery, overall customer satisfaction and a score greater than or equal to 80% on a supplier health assessment.”

Plexus Riverside facility:

 

This was previously posted on the forum in 2017:

 

Sorry I stand corrected and you are correct it is a Pelxus manufacturing facility.  But I also thought they were making the Codan communication equipment as well long before they also took on Minelab manufacturing?  Or have I got my facts screwed up?

Doc