[monochrome]

That doesn't explain Ricoh's pricing moves though.

Of course it does for the HD lenses and for the DA20~40. New coating evaporators are capital costs. Who knows how many process changes were made to existing lens production lines that we'll never see. One of Ricoh's 'adds' (what they bring to the table) is manufacturing process expertise.

The general MAP pricing strategy is a change from high-volume, low-margin pricing to lower-volume, higher-margin pricing. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Hoya was just liquidating the inventory of Pentax lenses and sold Pentax when the overhang had been cleared out.

A higher pricing strategy reflects Pentax's market share reality, protects each region globally from competition with the USA (B&H/Adorama/Amazon ship anywhere) and builds in enough retail price margin to allow B&M dealers to re-engage with Pentax.

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Last edited by monochrome; 02-10-2014 at 09:59 AM.

[mikemike]

Of course it does.

They ratcheted up the price of old lenses instead of releasing new revisions with MAP it was a bald faced price increase. With HD limiteds relaunch it was a 30% price increase for applying coatings that had already been developed to an existing set of lenses. If they released new versions with new optical formulas that would be one thing as they would be covering new R&D costs but what they have done is just changed the price tag.

[monochrome]

They ratcheted up the price of old lenses instead of releasing new revisions with MAP it was a bald faced price increase. With HD limiteds relaunch it was a 30% price increase for applying coatings that had already been developed to an existing set of lenses. If they released new versions with new optical formulas that would be one thing as they would be covering new R&D costs but what they have done is just changed the price tag.

How much does one coating evaporator cost, what is the useful life of the machine and how many pieces of glass wiil be sold over that useful life with the HD coating?

The SMC process was probably fully amortized and the machines were probably fully depreciated. The patent had expired. What was the cost and value of SMC?

As far as a plain pricing decision for any existing lenses that appear to hae been unchanged, they might have had to run a new batch with different costs; they might ahve had invisible design changes due to glass formula changes; or they might have just raised the price because they don't want to be seen as the cheap camera company. There are already several brands like Vivitar, Polaroid and certain Kodak applications that suffer that fate. Hoya could ahve just sold the name and walked away. We're lucky they didn't.

[Class A]

In my business, a service business, there is a saying that if you increase the price 10% and lose 50% of your customers you make more money.

That is only true if your margin is less than 11.2%.

Seems a very low margin to run a business on.