Meiden slashes its inverter prices

Meiden has cut the list prices of its inverter products by up to 37% in a move that, it claims, will bring UK prices into line with those elsewhere in Europe.

Andy Gardner, Meiden`s European business manager, asserts that UK drives prices are among the highest in the EU, and that Meiden intends to change this. "It`s about time that we broke away from the pack and levelled the price across Europe," he says.

For example, the company`s 18.5/22kW VT230S drive which previously listed for £3,080, will in future be priced at £1,950 - a reduction of 37%. Its 1.5kW version will come down from £760 to £540 - 29% decrease. Gardner insists that the new prices are "not time-limited, sale prices". The reductions have been achieved by "careful scrutiny of all our costs involved in everything from product development right through to final delivery to the customer".

He adds that the new prices will not affect delivery or service and that Meiden will continue to offer discounts "along the same lines as before". Gardner emphasizes that the price cuts are not a response to poor sales, saying that in the first two months of this year, the company sold almost twice as many drives as it did in the same period last year. He says that the company is now well enough established in the UK to implement the price cuts; it no longer needs to be a "market follower".

Gardner says that Meiden proved last year that low pricing policies work when it cut prices on its single-phase VT110 drives. Meiden`s sales across Europe are now worth more than £7m and the company hopes to boost the figure to £60m - equivalent to 5% of the market - by the year 2008. By June of this year, Meiden`s drives will be available in the UK in ratings up to 315kW. By the end of the year, 750kW models are due to reach the market.