Loading ...Little has been known of the reason why Alba Group have not been distributing Freesat SD Digital Boxes to retailers for some time. Most retailers ran out of stock a couple of months ago when availability dried out.
It seems now that Grundig, Goodmans and Bush branded receivers are due a come back within days, with one big difference…price! It appears that due to the weak pound, plus possible increases in manufacturing costs, that the trade price has increased by approx. £15 per unit, so expect the new retail price to hover around £65, not leaving much of a margin between the SD and HD variants.
The rumours of a 2nd generation box are true, which should launch around April/May, but are not the reason for the lack of supply over the past few months, this is believed, although not confirmed to be down to lack of component availability, i.e. Alba Group had not anticipated the high uptake of their Freesat receivers and didn’t have enough parts ready!
With availability again of SD boxes, plus the announcement of new products from Panasonic and TechniSat, sale volumes of Freesat, which are currently at 250,000 should rocket…no wonder Freesat are considering a large advertising campaign this Spring.
February 25th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Have to agree with your final comments there. Freesat sales are going to hit the million mark in the next 12 months.
I wonder why alba didnt anticipate demand? I did and i dont make boxes.
Paul DQuote
February 25th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Alba expected good uptake but the commercial production and sale of Freesat products is the responsibility of the manufacturers only, with no financial backing from Freesat, who choose not to get too involved, so it’s just a question of how far the manufacturers were willing to risk their own funding.
It’s unlikely now that they have assessed the situation that this will happen again.
For anyone wondering, HD box prices have not increased as supply never ran out, therefore the trade had purchased at the pre-increase prices. With will most likely result in higher prices when the next batches are required.
adminQuote
February 25th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
We have been advised by our trade suppliers that independent trade suppliers are not going to get the freesat SD receivers until March/April and the second generation SD boxes will not have the ethernet port included (will be kept only on th HD boxes)
Geoff MillerQuote
February 25th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Not sure which trade supplier you use, but some of them have now received large quantities of stock. The 2nd gen box isn’t expected til April/May but we’ve had no indication of a loss of Ethernet port, that seems unlikely.
adminQuote
February 25th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I use Solutions Group, SCC and Alltrade and all are not expecting stock until March April. Can you suggest another trade supplier which has stock as we need some rather urgently.
I also was dubious after hearing about the ethernet port but I was assured this was the case on the SD boxes.
Kind Regards
Geoff MillerQuote
February 25th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Eurosat have stock.
adminQuote
February 26th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Well, regarding Alba / Bush this may be an indication why supply has dried up:
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/19542/20566/argos-buys-alba-bush-brandnames.phtml
GaryQuote
February 26th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
That happened a long time ago now and isn’t linked to the supply problem.
adminQuote
February 27th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Eurosat only have goodmans sd boxes and selling them for £57.50 + delivery charge
It’s cheaper to buy the bush ones from argos!
Geoff MillerQuote
February 5th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
I have my freesat sd box plugged into my live box (which has broadband tv) but have not found any software to get the freesat box to communicate with my pc,
is such software available,
Fletch.
A FletcherQuote