GME - homegrown electronics

Sydney-based Standard Communications (GME) celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2009. Maintaining a profitable manufacturing business in Australia for over 50 years is no small feat, especially when you're dealing in the volatile marine market. While the marine industry was feeling the effects from an early onset of the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, GME was celebrating its anniversary with a bumper year thanks to the regularity change from analogue to digital EPIRB frequencies.

“The years 2008 and 2009 were exceptional for us and that was due to the changeover of EPIRBS going from analogue to digital. We were able to ramp up production to keep up with that demand and basically sold everything we could,” said GME marine marketing manager Matthew Heap.

GME has been manufacturing EPIRBS in Australia for over 35 years and has firmly established itself as a market leader in Australia.

The company also develops and manufactures marine communications including 27MHz and VHF, marine antennas, marine entertainment and a GPS plotter.

Outside the marine market, the company is involved in telemetry and data radio products, and television signal processing and distribution. According to Heap, marine related products account for about 30 per cent of GME's turnover.

GME's export business has been dampened somewhat by the strong Australian dollar, however the company still maintains a strong global presence. Here in Australia, GME has warehouse branches across the country, which Heap said allows for faster servicing of dealers compared with centralised warehousing in a larger capital city.

The company continues to manufacture its range of EPIRBS, VHF radios and antenna whips here in Australia.

While the rush for 406 MHz EPIRBs slowed  during 2009 and 2010, the company's diverse portfolio helped GME through a slower year in marine products.

“Late 2009 and 2010 was obviously down because we didn't have that EPIRB spike,” said Heap.

“While sales in all other categories were reasonable, we saw a slowdown in our marine entertainment products with it being a discretional spend. However we were happy, on the communication side, with the VHF and 27 MHz.

“It's difficult to say where the market is heading for the remainder of 2010 and 2011. We're certainly optimistic. Entertainment seems to have taken a rise and it means people are starting to spend more money on discretionary items, but the jury is still out,” said Heap.

New products for 2010 included a lower cost EPIRB, the MT406G. The totally compliant Class 2 EPIRB features a fully integrated 16 Channel GPS receiver and retails for $569. Marine Business spoke to Heap as the 2010 Mandurah Boat Show was wrapping up, with sales of the new unit at the show exceeding GME's expectations.

“The 406G EPIRBS are a lower cost GPS equipped EPIRB, it's what people have been asking for. We launched that in August of this year and have seen very strong sales so far. We saw that recently at the Mandurah Boat Show on that particular unit. People are seeing the advantages of having an EPIRB that not only transmits the data from that beacon but also gives the position of where the beacon is, so the people will get found quicker. And we have been able to reduce the price quite considerably on this unit, it's been very well received by the boating public,” said Heap.

Other new products include a iPod compatible stereo unit which also has the capability of playing music from SD cards and USB sticks.

“It's easy for people to put music files on storage cards and play them via our units,” said heap.

GME also released a range of removable antenna whips last year and will be increasing the range this year, especially with GME's OEM boat builders. “We've moved with the times there and brought to market what our customers have been asking for,” concluded Heap.