The death of calculator market?

[Albert Chan]

(10-03-2020 11:36 PM)harryp Wrote:  In general I think that a dedicated device is usually better at the task than a GPC (general purpose computer.)
... And - no distractions. I'm not going to answer email on it.

Only if dedicated device is much cheaper.

If high end calculator cost about the same as a netbook, I would go for the netbook.
Then, I can add whatever programs I like on it. Pythons, Lua, XCas, Excels, games ...
And, for nostalgia, add some calculator emulators on it.

The best part, you can run multiple programs at the same time (say, answer emails )

Quote:I think for number crunching a calculator is better. It's optimized to work with numbers and allow for quick 'what-ifs' and you don't have much overhead to learn. With Excel you'd have to learn Excel and then learn the formulas and then take care not to make a mistake with those.

For what-if analysis, I would say Excel is way better.
You can goal-seek the answer, without knowing how to get there.
(this reminds me of TK! Solver, back in my college days )

[CMarangon]

Hello!

Since 1998 I am saying that HP calculators will, in the future, be part of a multiuse device.
Well, today 24 years after, it is happening.

Smartphone outperformed many devices, like for example, telephones, alarm clocks, simple calculators, clocks, radios, k-7 players and so on.

Smartphones have a market of million people, for example,
China 1,100,000,000
India 893,862,000
USA 310,000,000
Brazil 210,00,000
Source: sorry, I lost it:-(

Calculators have a little part of the market, maybe there are about 200 millions user arround the world. (Who knows? I was unable to find it at Google)

It seems, in my umble opinion , that calculators will become part of a multiuse device, like smartphones, laps, tablets and computers.
At Google Play you can find a lot of calculators applets for smartphones.

Companies that make calculators like HP, Texas Instruments, Casio and so on, will invest in memory and softwares for computers and other devices. Softwares able to emulate calculators.

We already have EMU48 and HP Prime emulator.

I am also in Latin America (Brazil).

I think that market for calculators are low now, during covid's time, but it will react when it pass away.
Well, I am listen to people say since march 2020, that it will pass soon...

Kind regard,

Carlos

(06-09-2020 08:33 AM)Carlos295pz Wrote:  Due to the current situation, many countries have opted for distance education for a long period, and it seems that education will take that course because it will find great benefits. The PC and smartphones will take the true importance in education, at least one more massive and current for these times (They are re-claimed).

I do not pretend to be fatalistic, however is a reformulation of the capabilities of the current calculator software planned? is that possible? Why would someone be interested in buying a calculator right now? a long time has passed and we have not yet received a statement. Is starting to charge for the virtual-PC calculator one of the measures?

LATIN AMERICA: The student will no longer leave home, why would he need a calculator if his work will be perennial on the computer and the phone with educational tools that were always at hand but that many times due to the ineptitude of the teachers not were used properly, For now I have been very careful with this and I do not recommend buying in case you ask me.

[EdS2]

A very common use for calculators around the world is for shopkeepers and stall holders - I can easily imagine there are hundreds of millions of those. Not only to do the simplest arithmetic but also to show the result to the customer. And not connected to a cash register - no trace left!

[Allen]

Love this post and the discussion. I've been studying this problem for some time now. Not being in the business of manufacturing calculators, I don't have production and sales data, but as collector and relatively a high-volume trader, I do have strike price history I can use as a (perhaps poor?) proxy for calculator demand.

During the COVID shutdown, I reviewed my price database of HP calculator prices to see if are calculators a good long-term investment (e.g. for collection purposes?)

I chose 6 common models ( 2 graphing, 2 scientific, 2 financial) that I had data for almost every year from 2007-2020 (some years more than others- and no data was available for a some years).

Graphing Calculators:
48g/gx-nominal price does about as well as inflation



Scientific Calculators
32sii and 42s - price is relatively flat (does not keep up with inflation)



Financial Calculators
17bii 12c- nominally price is falling, well below inflation


(USD, 2007 Dollars, inflation source: https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflati...7&amount=1 )

Despite the sad news that our collections likely won't turn into gold, I still enjoy collecting and using these calculators and the idea that they are headed to devalued obsolescence makes me a little sad.

I do think other commentators are correct that emulators and smart phone apps have taken over some of the demand, but it's not universally true for every model.

For some models, like the 48gx, the resell demand has been partially driven by commercial applications like surveying. As the supply of new HP48gx's has dried up, the demand for commercial developers like TDS has also waned, and users have adapted to more "modern" approaches.

For financial calculators, I suspect there is a large portion of the market that has been taken over by Excel (tm), smart phone apps, custom financial products (e.g. a realtor now uses their internal mortgage tracking system over a 12c on the desk) or even website "calculators" for specific things- For example this BMI calculator.

For mortgage calculations I still prefer my 17bii, but with excel or python I can run 100's of millions of monte-carlo simulations before a major financial decision. Even for non-financial calculations,

In both cases the substitution effect has led consumers away from hand-held calculators to other things.

I foresee a not-too-distant future where both cell phone calculator apps and even some of what we do today in Excel are replaced by automated voice assistants.

I can already ask Amazon Alexa and Google Home basic maths questions like: "What is the 84th digit of pi?" and "What is 8 factorial?" or "What is the square root of 123456789?" Creating the technology to convert my question into a computer-understandable symbols is WAY more difficult than actually solving any of these fairly trivial math questions.

I tried asking Alexa: "What is the integral from 0 to 2 pi of sin of x dx" but that one didn't go very well right now.. Maybe the future will fix that?

[John Keith]

You bring up an important and oft-neglected point: inflation. Those who talk about their classic calculators maintaining or exceeding their original selling price are off by a factor of 7 or more.

In inflation-adjusted figures, the cost of an HP-97 in 1976 would buy you a high-end laptop and a high resolution inkjet printer today.

[Hlib]

In my city with a population of more than one million inhabitants, there are about 5,000 students who study at local higher education institutions with international accreditation. At the moment, there are real engineers in the number of more than 150 units and about 200 highly qualified teachers of natural sciences for the entire city. I do not include primary schools, colleges, or higher education institutions without an international certificate in this data. It seems that you can effectively sell scientific calculators here. But...
At the same time, there are no graphic calculators anywhere in retail in my town. According to my data, in this city, you can actually sell no more than 50 expensive ($40+) graphic calculators per year (including illegal private transactions). I have been observing this situation in my region for the past 20 years.
On the other hand, last year in my city, several thousand Indian-made androids were officially sold in the price segment over $300 (not counting other categories), and the official revenues to the local budget from the production of cheap alcohol exceed the revenues from the sale of graphic calculators by at least a hundred thousand times, even for such a prosperous city as mine.
I am not concerned about the dying calculator market, because now, thanks to Internet technology, we can buy any calculator at any time, even without leaving the apartment.

[pier4r]

This is a recurring topic, with or without covid.

Students that are barely interested substituted calculators with computers and smartphones long ago (aside from exams), it is nothing new.

But as long as no tacticle feedback is provided, the input interface of a calculator is always more usable than a touchscreen/computer/tablet for those that click several times on the keyboard.

Of course one can say "but a computer keyboard is great". Sure it is. Only I was thinking the case that one is writing on paper, thus having to move the head up and down to look at the screen is not very healthy. Therefore a monitor is out. What remains, on the same plane as paper, are smartphones, tablets, calculators and the last one has the better input for the moment.

[rawi]

Hi,

interest can be tracked with Google trends which reports how the searches for certain terms develop. If I put in "calculator" I get the following picture for the last 5 years and the world:

https://trends.google.de/trends/explore?...calculator

This shows a stable if not increasing interest.

Same picture for the US or using "Taschenrechner" for Germany.

Unfortunately the curve for the HP prime is going down:

https://trends.google.de/trends/explore?...HP%20prime

So there seems to be a constant interest in the general topic and no signs of death being near by, but HP seems to lose.

Best

Raimund

[Hlib]

In the 90s, business was just beginning in our country, so we were living witnesses of branded quality at a very high price. In retail, you could buy the most modern models from leading brands.
Thanks to that era, I can now distinguish the artisanal production between of hp-50g, hp-39gs, hp-39gii, hp-prime etc for South Africa and branded products for expensive customers. Now I have new information: SwissMicros is not able to reproduce a high-quality keyboard for $5 at least as in TI-85. I don`t want to get into the nuances, but for the next 5 years, I crossed this manufacturer off my list. HP-Prime because of the deception with the display, I now never buy (only as an emulator on a android phone).

`pier4r` pid=`137575` dateline=`1602515232` Wrote:...Of course one can say "but a computer keyboard is great". ...

I always tried to get a calculator for serious work, not for the right tactile sensations and permissions for the ACT. For fetishism, I have an hp-50g lying around in the trash. Once every half a year, I put new batteries in it, turn it on and say: you are the most powerful calculator in the world, sleep well. Then I put it back and turn to the go49gp. Because I can write a huge book about 50g`s hardwarebugs and lags. But I won`t repeat myself here.

[Benjer]

I'm in my final year pursuing a BS in civil engineering, and as someone with an interest in calculators, I've taken note of how the students around me use them, what they think of them, and why they use a particular calculator.

It seemed the most important consideration for most students was price. The cheapest calculator which can do the job was often the most popular. In higher level math this sometimes took a back seat to computing power (real or perceived) and in classes where graphing calculators dominated, the TI models (TI-83+ and TI-84 CE) were most common. In other classes where only scientific calculators were needed (lower level engineering and physics courses) Casios were more common.

My school's college of engineering has a calculator policy directly based on the NCEES policy (which administers the FE and PE exams). So only the handful of calculators allowed are present. Again, Casios are most common, with the TI-36x pro making up the minority. Besides myself, I saw nobody else using an HP-35s.

In my 5 years of school, I've seen only one other person using an HP calculator (HP-50g in ALG mode). Another person recognized my HP Prime, and mentioned his was stolen. Virtually everyone else was unaware HP even made calculators. Among those who expressed an interest, that interest evaporated upon hearing how much they cost.

I got the impression from most students that they would use Desmos on their smartphone or something similar if they were allowed to on exams.

The above is all anecdotal, of course, and should be taken with a grain of salt.

[pier4r]

(10-12-2020 05:28 PM)Hlib Wrote:  Because I can write a huge book about 50g`s hardwarebugs and lags. But I won`t repeat myself here.

Well I am sorry for you experience, in my little experience I didn't experience much bugs. Moreover everything is bugged, there is no non-trivial software that is error free. But as long as the bugs are rare encounters, then it is all fine.

[Hlib]

Hi, Benjer!
You have discovered very important and interesting information.

Quote:In my 5 years of school, I`ve seen only one other person using an HP calculator (HP-50g in ALG mode). Another person recognized my HP Prime, and mentioned his was stolen. Virtually everyone else was unaware HP even made calculators

Once long ago, I participated in the destruction of several tens of thousands of scientific and graphical calculators from CASIO using a shredder. The local mafia set up their own business. In those far distant days, in our city, in every alley there was a Casio salon that sold the latest models of calculators and PDAs. Now I understand this business with calculators. IRL I have met only two people who have heard the magic spell "graphing calculator" from someone. And two other people who sold these calculators but couldn`t fully read the user manual. More IRL, I have not met people who can program on graphical calculators. Only virtually do I know some of them.

[Hlib]

`pier4r` pid=`137588` dateline=`1602533833` Wrote:

`Hlib` pid=`137579` dateline=`1602523706` Wrote:Because I can write a huge book about 50g`s hardwarebugs and lags. But I won`t repeat myself here.

Well I am sorry for you experience, in my little experience I didn`t experience much bugs. Moreover everything is bugged, there is no non-trivial software that is error free. But as long as the bugs are rare encounters, then it is all fine.

I do not pay special attention to software bugs, this is quite normal. I just know a little about electronics and compare technical solutions from HP amateurs against the same solutions from CASIO in hardware.
I do not delve into more complex technological solutions, because on this forum I was not given elementary answers about at least the power scheme in hp-39gii/50g, which is simply terrible in comparison with CASIO fx-2.0/fx-9860gii/giii. For example, the fx-9850g etc/ti-84+/ti-84+CE are terrible calculators compared to the correct technical solutions in the fx-9750g/fx-2.0/ti-83+. I`m sorry, I don`t spend a lot of time on technical issues, because this is not my specialty. Nevertheless, it is very bad to deceive consumers, which is what HP, TI and CASIO are constantly doing.
I ask: why "hp" ... and so on ... They answer me - because "hp" are the best calculators in the world. Where are the engineers, not the programmers and managers?
Over the past 20 years, CASIO has not been able to solve the problem in its programming language: "ABC"➝ Str (expression). But we are worried about Python and CAS. :-)

[celltx]

(10-12-2020 03:54 PM)rawi Wrote:  Unfortunately the curve for the HP prime is going down:

https://trends.google.de/trends/explore?...HP%20prime

Very nice idea to check the search popularity.
Actually, the trend you show is a worldwide trend. If you check US-only, the popularity of HP Prime stands more-less constant:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore...hp%20prime

Same is in Germany, even growing slightly:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore...hp%20prime

[celltx]

There is a market research from 2018 that projects a nice growth in 2016-25 time frame:

https://www.globalmarketestimates.com/ma...tor-market

"The global graphing calculator market is projected to grow at a rapid rate over the forecast period. The market growth is positively influenced by surging demand for innovative and interactive technology to enhance the process of acquiring knowledge. Graphing calculators are widely used to create customized programs specific to the user’s need. These calculators are also used in plotting graphs, solving complex equations, and performing other mathematical & statistical operations."

[Thomas Radtke]

This year I worked as a teacher. My students had cheap TI and Casio calculators and didn't master PEMDAS on them. Correct formula, bad result. In the last few weeks I used my calculator to design tasks where they don't need calculators at all. Wise decision.

But: They do liked them. They liked them so much they even used them to solve most simple calculations. Took some time to get them to reckognize they're faster doing some steps in mind.

In physics, calculators are much more important (due to real world data, e.g. measurements). But then we often used the PC room.

I think we can live without pocket calculators.

[celltx]

According to another market report on cheap scientific calculators, education is large but not the largest application for them:

"Scientific Calculator Market Research: Global Status & Forecast by Geography, Type & Application (2016-2026)"

https://www.marketintellica.com/report/M...bal-status

[Thomas Radtke]

So, more engineers use calculators than math students? That would be wonderful, but doesn't sound plausible, does it?

[grsbanks]

(10-14-2020 05:13 AM)Thomas Radtke Wrote:  So, more engineers use calculators than math students? That would be wonderful, but doesn't sound plausible, does it?

And if that were truly the case, why are manufacturers clearly taking their cues from the education market and designing calculators made for students rather than professionals?

[vaklaff]

(10-14-2020 08:06 AM)grsbanks Wrote:  And if that were truly the case, why are manufacturers clearly taking their cues from the education market and designing calculators made for students rather than professionals?

Is it just the calculator market? It seems to me that some kind of infantilization affects many more products!
;-)