Speaker Sales Numbers

In terms of sheer units sold per year, what is considered a lot of sales for a specific speaker model?

Obviously, different companies have different sales goals based on all kinds of factors, but I was just wondering, how many speakers are sold per year for (seemingly) popular models, like the Elac Debut, KEF LS50, Klipsch ps-600m or the JBL L-100? 10,000 pairs? 50,000 pairs? I have no idea.

I'm just curious. Maybe there is no simple answer.

 

Good question. Also curious....especially the larger companies.

 

Serial numbers might provide order of magnitude insight

 

Be interesting to see what the largest selling price range is.

 

My (seemingly popular) Klipsch RP 600m has a 15 digit serial number so I don’t think that will be helpful.

 

My TT
The first letters are usually model, location, year
The last sequential
My guess this is the 1011 made this year.
Need to compare it against older models and ones made in Malaysia to possibly decode.

 

Back in the day I worked for Wharfedale. The largest production was the Diamond, of which we churned out 50,000 pairs a year.

 

I can only speculate based on the numbers I saw in the mid 90s, as a retailer and later working for an electronics manufacturer.

Numbers in the tens of thousands of pairs would be rare unless you’re talking about mass market cheap stuff that happened to get a great Consumer Reports review and was a real stand out. Affordable high end in the $500- $5000 range might only do a few thousand pairs at best. And I think you’d be surprised at how many Audio magazine approved stuff only sells a few hundred pairs, many much less than that.

 

As an example, Magnepan claims on their about us page that they have produced over 200,000 pairs since their inception in 1969, but it looks like this page hasn't been updated in a few years. But I'd guess their production is smaller now than it was 20 years ago (pre-ipod) when high end audio was more popular. So I'd guess 6k to 8k per year at this point, across their product line.

 

about a 1,000 individual units a month.
It may be constant, demand per capita may have gone down but US population increased 60% plus more world market.

Either way, 1,000 unit/month is a lot of speakers!

 

Wonder how many Klipschorns are turned out every year?

 

I'd like to know how many top of the line Wilson's are sold per year?
10, 100, ???

 

I would be curious to know total production numbers....in production since 1946 ish?Gotta be a candidate for longest running speaker model...impressive

 

I believe speaker company production numbers are kept secret and nothing published exists with perhaps a few exceptions in some advertising somewhere.

 

Glad I got mine.

 

I'm sure that is right in general. And I can't speak for numbers now. But when Wharfedale was in Bradford (oddly enough in Airedale) loudspeaker manufacture was like a car production line. Vacuum forming machines to make the cones and coil winding machines at the front end, crossover assembly, and then through various assembly stations, then finally magentising in water-cooled coil and footswitch operated machines, stuffed into the cabinet and then packing. It was slick. But the bookshelf Diamond was the big seller. More expensive speakers sold nothing like as many.

50,000 pairs is only one loudspeaker every two minutes (on an 8 hour working day), which is pretty easy for a small, vanilla two way speaker.

Other technologies, where the cabinet is more complex, have planar structures (electrostatic or planar ribbon), or are horns are much more time consuming to construct. These have much higher higher price point and the production volumes tumble. From Ken Kessler's book "The Closest Approach" over the 28 year life of the original ESL 17,000 pairs were sold, or about 600 pairs per year. The ESL63 sold 17,500 pairs in 19 years or 920 pairs per year.

 

KEF 2020/2021 Annual report Approx $4million per week lot of speakers
$202.9 million. Sales of KEF products increased by 26.2%, with growth in
sales of both traditional premium loudspeakers and new media products. KEF’s new
products launched during FY2021 were well received by the American and European
markets, the revenue from which increased by 31.0% and 37.2% respectively. Sales
of KEF products to the Asian market remained steady
most major markets amid the COVID19 pandemic caused a significant reduction in product demand

 

That is interesting confirmation of sales volume. It depends on the mix of speakers, prices and volumes of course. But assuming an average price per pair of $1400, the annual sales of ~$200m implies an annual production of over 140,000 pairs.

 

I helped!
Bought R3's spring of 2020.
That is a lot of product!

 

As impressive as some of these numbers might seem (for 'audiophile'-type loudspeakers), I'm betting they're a rounding error in comparison to sales of Sonos-type speakers, and all the little plastic Bluetooth speakers and cheap earbuds that the regular folks outside our little ghetto use ...

 

It’s pretty low, less than 500 I’m pretty sure.

 

Fremer touched on this a little bit in a recent episode of the vintage guitar amps podcast. He’s talking about his new Wilson XVX speakers (retail $329k) and mentions that when he first received them, prior to his review, Wilson had sold about 20 pairs and “now” (May 20) they have sold about 100 pairs.

starts about 52:00
The Truth About Vintage Amps, Ep. 70 | Fretboard Journal

 

These are SN 79/80
So 40 sets or more.
That is a lot of $300k+ speakers. Lol

Wilson Audio Specialties Chronosonic XVX loudspeaker Specifications

 

Guys the numbers for high end stuff are in 10's or maybe 100's at most. When I started shopping in NYC for my first serious stereo system in 1998 I was in Sound by Singer and asked the salesman how many conrad-johnson ART preamps ($16K and limited to 250 units) they sold each year. He said about 1 / month. In 2002 I bought my first serious TT, a VPI TNT-HR which was $8K (with tonearm ). I had been in production for about 3 years, my serial number was 175. In November 2017 I bought a pair of Magico S7's which are what most people would call high-end ( but not $329K high-end ) . They came out in 2016 and the dealer said he had the speakers for 9 months on his floor before I bought them. The list at that time was $58K, I got the ones on his floor as demo units with a noticeable discount. My serial numbers are 51/52 (26 pairs ).

My guess is for speakers they have to be under $1000 to get volumes in the thousands and probably under $500 to break in a volume of 10,000 or more.

 

Nobody here has access to the actual data? There IS a firm that collects such, at least across larger sales channels. But (like that Simpsons episode where the phone company keeps changing its name) they changed their name and I don't remember what they are called now.