Ricoh Announces Imaging Company Name Change

Pentax Ricoh Imaging to become just "Ricoh Imaging"

By PF Staff in Pentax Announcements on Jul 3, 2013

The Ricoh Corporation announced yesterday that the company responsible for the manufacture of Pentax and Ricoh cameras will soon be seeing a name change.  Ricoh's wholly-owned imaging division, previously known as "Pentax Ricoh Imaging", will be renamed to just "Ricoh Imaging" on August 1st. This change applies to all the worldwide divisions of the company, such as "Pentax Ricoh Imaging Americas" or "Pentax Ricoh Imaging France".

What does this change mean for consumers?  Virtually nothing, as it's merely a corporate name change. No modifications will be made to the names of current Pentax/Ricoh products, and both Pentax- and Ricoh-branded cameras will continue being produced without any changes in branding.

So, in case you need reassurance, this news does not mean or imply that the Pentax brand is going away.  Pentax cameras will continue being made as always.

The only thing you will notice is that company name on the label underneath future Pentax and Ricoh cameras will read "Ricoh Imaging" rather than "Pentax Ricoh Imaging".  This shouldn't come as a surprise to Pentax old-timers, as the company owning the Pentax brand has now changed its name five times in the past decade (from Asahi Optical Co. to Pentax Corporation to Hoya Corporation to Pentax Ricoh Imaging to Ricoh Imaging).

Note: in future homepage posts, we will continue to refer to Ricoh Imaging Americas as "Pentax USA", and its Japanese equivalent as "Pentax Japan".

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