D-Star Radio's

[n8qxb]

Does anyone know why Yaesu and Kenwood are not making D-Star Radio's? Are they thinking P-25 instead? Since the radio's are expensive I wanted to inquire as to why Icom is the only manufacturer thusfar.
Thank you for any info!

[AB8XA]

D-Star is a small, high-end/high-profit niche market compared to the larger lower-price, higher-volume mass market Yaesu and Kenwood, and even Icom still, all participate in.  There's a quantity of units that must be sold to break even on development and tooling costs, over and above production costs.  Perhaps Kenwood and Yaesu feel the D-Star market is too small to profitably support more than one vendor.