Instrument statistics, anyone?

[brjordan]

The number of machines sold by each major manufacturer is a closely guarded secret - they gave some figures at the beginning, but no longer now (as far as I've been able to see). Does anyone have firm or semi-firm estimates? My own guestimate is around 1,000 systems sold altogether, more than half being Illumina and the rest shared (about equally) between 454 and SOLiD...
Do you agree, disagree?

All replies will be VERY welcome!

[cgb]

whilst I also don't have access to any official numbers either, your estimate sounds about right -- based on what ive heard.

[steven]

The number of machines sold by each major manufacturer is a closely guarded secret - they gave some figures at the beginning, but no longer now (as far as I've been able to see). Does anyone have firm or semi-firm estimates? My own guestimate is around 1,000 systems sold altogether, more than half being Illumina and the rest shared (about equally) between 454 and SOLiD...
Do you agree, disagree?

All replies will be VERY welcome!

Hey, you forgot the 11 Heliscope from Helicos!

Well, your estimation sounds quite realistic to me, a market study i read was displaying similar numbers.
Regarding the distribution -by location and manufacturers- a sample is available on this map.
cheers,
s.

[brjordan]

Other makes

Yes, I did forget Helicos (and also the Polonator), but these are still very small contributors... Can you tell a little more about the market study you saw (I suppose it is one of these $3,000 studies and is not available)?

Anyway, thanks for your reply, and I'm happy to see that my ballpark estimate seem to be reasonable.

Cheers,

Bertrand

[steven]

Hi Bertrand,
No, i did not pay 3000$.. i think i saw this in genomeweb article.
You may also be interested in the only two surveys i am aware of with publicly available results:
http://seqanswers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1108
http://seqanswers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2273
cheers,
s.

[krobison]

Illumina reported today at users meeting they recently shipped 1500th instrument.

[brjordan]

This sounds very high (1,500 GA instruments shipped)... Are you sure they are referring exclusively to GA and not lumping together other instruments? Do you have any link to this statement?
Thanks,

Bertrand

[kmcarr]

If their serial numbers are meaningful then they have shipped over 1500. We just got an instrument a month ago and its serial number is 1599. Our original instrument, received about 2.5 years ago was serial number 216.

[brjordan]

Well, serial numbers are not always meaningful - remember the story of Hitler's party card number? (number 555 - but they had started the numbering at 500 so as not to give away their small numbers).
However if you saw #216 two years ago and now see #1599 - this looks pretty solid (not SOLiD!)...
Any other comments to confirm this? Recent serial numbers or other info?

Thanks to all,

Bertrand

[GW_OK]

Our serial number is 1508. We got ours delivered in late September.

[dan]

On this subject... Anyone got good figures for 'cost per Mega base' for the Illumina, 454 and Sanger technologies?

I have the following numbers:

Sanger 5.00 pounds per megabase.
Roche 0.02 pounds per megabase.
Illumina 0.002 pounds per megabase.


However, they seem too low!

Can anyone interpret these values for me?

Can anyone offer other values with appropriate interpretation?

Cheers,

[Jonathan]

Nah, maybe a little high!

I did some calculations for a small talk last year and based by numbers on the official pricing of the 'Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy' at Duke University, Durham, USA - last January or so:

Saenger: 150$ --> 96kbp in ~1000bp
Illumina: 1950$ --> 325Mbp in 2x36bp
454: 8000$ --> 30Mbp in ~260bp

Saenger: 0.0015 $ ~7bp/cent
454: 0.0004 $ ~ 25bp/cent
Illumina: 0.000006 $ ~ 1600bp/cent

unless I was having some serious miscalculations...or very off estimates...

While Illumina is cheapest, you need a moderate to serious coverage for deNovo sequencing and so on...

Best
-Jonathan

[dan]

Thanks Jonathan!

While Illumina is cheapest, you need a moderate to serious coverage for deNovo sequencing and so on...

Right, that is kind of what I meant by 'interpretation'. i.e. the difference between the cost of a 'finished base' vs. the cost of a 'raw base'.

I'll see how these numbers come out when I multiply through by my volume of data...

Dan.

[brjordan]

Thank you all for your helpful feedback.

So we are left with an estimate of 1,000 machines (total, ca. 50% Illumina, the rest shared between SOLiD & 454), which several people agreed with (this is also in line with a June '09 report by the Leerink Swann investment bank), and another much higher estimate according to which there would be more than 1,500 Illumina machines, and presumably around 1,000 others... The error bar is pretty large! My impression (for what it's worth) is that the CURRENT (dec. '09) figure is probably at or above 2,000 total since a) the Leerink report did not account for all genome centers (and much less all individual labs), b) there has apparently been a buying spree lately, and c) the evidence for 1,500 Illumina machines is anecdotal (serial numbers) but significant.

One more point: it looks as if 454 has been losing market share. Maybe that's why they just announced a "454 junior" with 1/5th the price and 1/10th the throughput of their current system?

All comments are of course welcome...

Bertrand

[cgb]

discounts

of course what we can never expect to see is how many machines are fully paid for, how many are discounted and how many are just placed for free.