放射能計測器は売り手市場 ― seller’s market

”売り手市場”という日本語をそのまま置き換えたような英語ですが、英語では”seller’s market”といいます。

大震災に伴う原発事故の影響で、一般個人までもが放射能計測器を求めるようになりましたが、そうした背景からか、計測器は売り手市場になっているというレポートです。


In Tokyo’s bustling Akihabara electronics district, one of the hottest products isn’t a new game console or tablet computer. It’s a Geiger counter, sold under Shanghai Ergonomics Detecting Instrument’s DP802i brand name, that costs ¥65,000 ($800). That’s double the price tag in China. And unlike units sold on the mainland, the models hawked in Tokyo come without a box, warranty, or return policy.

Because of worries about radioactive contaminants since the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown in March, Geiger counters, which measure radiation levels, have sold out even as prices have quadrupled in Tokyo.

（中略）

Tokyo residents snapped up the devices after reactor meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. Radiation readings in the capital soared twentyfold and tap water was temporarily deemed unsafe for infants, while food products including spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums, and fish were found to be contaminated. The result: Dosimeters sold out as far away as Germany. “It was absolutely a seller’s market,” Huang says, with some manufacturers moving a year’s worth of inventory in a week.
(Pavel Alpeyev. Japan's Seller's Market in Geiger Counter. Business Week. July 21, 2011.)


日本人の習性でしょうか、震災直後の水や食料の買い占め騒ぎを彷彿とさせます。尤も、諸外国でも需要があるようですが、上記の引用の冒頭にもあるように、秋葉原で売れているのは中国製の保証書も、箱すらもないシロモノ（しかも価格が中国本土の2倍！）ということですから、呆れます。

引用しませんが、記事には販売元自身が品質の低さ、故障の多さを認めているという記述もあります。計測器を求める人たちも現実を知るべきでしょう。

全文はこちら。