Pentax Ricoh Imaging Company Gets a Boost

Ricoh Reorganizes their Imaging Divisions

By PF Staff in Pentax Announcements on Feb 9, 2012

On February 9, the first day of the CP+ trade show in Yokohama, the Ricoh Company announced a reorganization effective April 1, 2012 of their imaging divisions placing the responsibility of also the Ricoh camera brand in the hands of the new Pentax Ricoh Imaging Company (PRI).

Here at PentaxForums we are very excited about this change and believe that with Ricoh's support and financial backing of the Pentax Ricoh Imaging Company we will see a serious boost in Pentax and Ricoh product development, marketing and sales. With Ricoh as the owner, Pentax now is very well positioned- much better than with Hoya at the helm.

The first signs of the stepped up activity has already showed with a flurry of product announcements lately. First in January the new Optio VS20 compact camera, then here in February the K-01 mirror-less K-Mount camera and the very generously spec'ed Optio WG-02 rugged compact, and this week at the CP+ trade show the announcement of quite a number of lenses and adapters for all three families of Pentax interchangeable lens cameras, the Q System, the K-Mount System, and the 645D medium format system. Clearly Ricoh wants Pentax to move ahead full steam with all three product lines!  Now, all that remains is for Ricoh to enter the professional DSLR market, as they seem to have all the other bases covered quite well.

Add to that that Ricoh is coming out with a K-Mount module for their GXR mirror-less system. So if you missed that view finder on the K-01, here's the solution!

We expect more news from Pentax in the near future including an entry level DSLR, and we hope that we'll also see a K-Mount full frame DSLR announced before long as the beginning of a Pro line within the K-Mount system. You can help us encourage Pentax to make this happen by going to our Facebook Pentax FF petition page and "Like" it. Our goal is to show Pentax that there is sufficient interest in the market for a full frame Pentax DSLR to justify the development.