Is Raymarine pricing themselves out of the chart business?

[DDW]

Raymarine supplied charts have gone through a few iterations over the years. In the newer Lighthouse II/III generation of products, you have been able to load NOAA, Navionics, C-Map, CHS, and other charts. The NOAA ones started out free from chartstore.raymarine.com, then they added a nominal charge of $15 for a large area. This facility was actually enabled by Fugawi, who could also license the CHS charts for use on a Raymarine plotter.

Fast forward, Navionics purchased by Garmin, C-Map by Furuno, Fugawi by some idiots who simply disbanded the company. Raymarine scrambled and announced their own charting, this about a year ago. Currently you can purchase these charts for the UK, much or Europe, but N.A. has said "coming soon" to this day.

Up until now, it showed all of North America as one offering, $149, "coming soon". About 2 weeks ago this changed, split into the USA western states, Canada, and Alaska/Hawaii, each at $149, still "coming soon". This means if you want to go from Roche Harbor WA to Sidney BC, you need $300 worth of charts. If you want to go from Seattle to Ketchikan, $450 worth of charts. Same area is covered by Navionics (Garmin) at $199 SRP and $165 discount (no discounters for Raymarine), about the same for C-Map.

I could just be satisfied with Navionics and vote with my feet. I'd rather have the viable option of Raymarine charts, but it appears they have priced themselves far above the market for this area. I'd like to hear opinions, and stir up some feedback to them that their pricing strategy is flawed.

 

[BandB]

While it remains to be seen where Raymarine's pricing will end up, the answer to your question is they are no pricing themselves out. Here is the reason. The key is new boats and they continue to buy their way into boat manufacturers. As long as they are aggressive there, they'll have a significant share of the market, and most will continue to buy charts from them when needed.

 

[Shrew]

I've used Navionics in Raymarine products for the last 13-14 years. They've always sliced and diced the regions for chart coverage. Even now [Navionics: Boston - NY: $199.00]

Electronic charts have been priced like this for a long time.

 

[fryedaze]

The pricing has been that high for at least 6 years. They own the market.

 

[DDW]

The pricing has been that high for at least 6 years. They own the market.

Raymarine's charts started free, and up until 2 years ago were $15 for large areas. My comparisons were their direct competitors. $15 is very low, but $450 is kinda high. They hardly own this market, it belongs to Navionics and C-Map. They are trying to break in with a competing product. Except the price is not competitive, at least in the PNW. I had no complaint when the (coming soon!) chart for North America was $150, that is similar to Navionics at $165. $450 is nearly 3x, for a much smaller area.

 

[DDW]

While it remains to be seen where Raymarine's pricing will end up, the answer to your question is they are no pricing themselves out. Here is the reason. The key is new boats and they continue to buy their way into boat manufacturers. As long as they are aggressive there, they'll have a significant share of the market, and most will continue to buy charts from them when needed.

It would be interesting to see some statistics on the installed base of LH III users. How many use Navionics, C-Map, Raymarine, other. I had all 3 on mine, threw out the C-Map as it was basically useless, but used Navionics and Raymarine. My guess is that far more of the installed base uses Navionics than Raymarine, so just buying installs in new boats does not answer the question.