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Stern assembly in Brasil

Spot on Dave, I think this is what's going on in Brazil. But I'm surprised the market is so big that this is worth doing...
 
Spot on Dave, I think this is what's going on in Brazil. But I'm surprised the market is so big that this is worth doing...

Some countries have strange rules about importing finished goods from overseas and big tariffs are slapped on them.

So kits are imported for final assembly.

Yes. There are huge tariffs or taxes on imported gaming and arcade hardware in Brazil, and there have been for decades. They've been reduced significantly, recently, at least on consoles, but they're still pretty massive compared with most other markets.

This is historically why Taito and SEGA were present in Brazil, producing locally.

As an example, a PS4 Pro is about $750 in Brazil, and $400 in the US (sales tax is 17-19%). The PS4 itself launched at $1800 ... so there has been some normalisation. Probably due to the realisation that there's no chance any more of local production or assembly on consoles. However I'm not aware that this has been extended to the tariffs on commercial stuff ... like arcade, pinball and general amusement machines, as they can be and are made in BR.

I assume this is the case here for Stern, and savings on labour might be significant enough to allow for lower prices for Latin America whilst retaining their margin, expanding their market.

Another interesting thing about Brazil is that it's one of the few countries that uses both 110V/60Hz and 220V/50Hz. So presumably Stern are going to have to disable their dirty trick region locking for BR market MPU boards.

Wonder how long before they announce a manufacturing deal in China.
 
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