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02-11-2019, 12:03 PM   #46
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Markets are fluïde. Before I bought a Pentax dslr I had a Nikon SLR. That is how it works in life.

02-11-2019, 01:05 PM   #47
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QuoteOriginally posted by Kunzite Quote
If Canon and Nikon will push mirrorless this year, the DSLR shipments in Japan will further fall.
They fell 16.4% in 2017 vs. 14.3% growth in mirrorless, in a year where Sony had the FF MILC market to themselves. No question, new product releases from Canon, Nikon and Sony have an impact, especially when drilling down to smaller groupings (like the Japanese market). But that isn't the whole story, because new products are released globally. Without spending the time needed to verify it, it seems to me that all of Asia (including Japan) has taken up MILCs earlier than Europe and the Americas, regardless of new product releases and in the rest of Asia, MILC sales dropped more than DSLRs in 2018. Even if we just look at Japan, the seismic effect of new FF MILCs from Canon and Nikon in 2018 didn't move the needle to the same degree as 2017. It seems to me that we have now seen the MILC peak and I expect the decline in MILC sales to exceed the decline in DSLR sales in 2019. Maybe -15% for MILC and less than -10% for DSLRs.


There is no mass market for standalone cameras anymore, so the market will be at the mercy of prosumers with enough money to buy new equipment because they want to, not because they have to. Based on a relatively slow, and steady decline in lens purchases, that prosumer market is also declining, but at some point (probably in the next two to three years) that trend will stop.
02-11-2019, 03:19 PM - 2 Likes   #48
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QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
Its all about lenses now.
It always has been hasn't it?
02-11-2019, 03:53 PM   #49
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QuoteOriginally posted by RGlasel Quote
It seems to me that we have now seen the MILC peak and I expect the decline in MILC sales to exceed the decline in DSLR sales in 2019. Maybe -15% for MILC and less than -10% for DSLRs.
I think mirrorless still has two good years ahead before saturation and decline hits. The biggest growth for mirrorless isn't in shipped units (that was only +1,4 %), but in growth in yen (that was + 23 % last year). The upmarket stream will hit a sealing when customers will turn away from this expensive hobby.

02-11-2019, 05:43 PM   #50
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QuoteOriginally posted by RonHendriks1966 Quote
Markets are fluid. Before I bought a Pentax dslr I had a Nikon SLR. That is how it works in life.
I had Pentax SLR, then Canon SLR, then Canon DSLR, now back to Pentax for DSLR.
As you must know, the more lenses someone has, the harder it is to switch, but it can be done.
Canonikon have made it relatively easy for a user to switch from their DSLR to their MILC because they know that current users are an asset.
Now, what was your point??
02-12-2019, 02:18 AM   #51
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QuoteOriginally posted by reh321 Quote
I had Pentax SLR, then Canon SLR, then Canon DSLR, now back to Pentax for DSLR.
As you must know, the more lenses someone has, the harder it is to switch, but it can be done.
Canonikon have made it relatively easy for a user to switch from their DSLR to their MILC because they know that current users are an asset.
Now, what was your point??
Some People believe that Pentaxians are less likely to switch brands and move to mirrorless. I don't think so.
02-15-2019, 08:07 AM - 1 Like   #52
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I see a LOT of promotional efforts in all directions, I see much more promotional efforts than engineering efforts. It is a sign that marketing was the way chosen to grow the camera market (like for cosmetics, coca cola, pepsi, redbull). Redbull is an amazing company, the marketing department is oversized, they make money out of selling "Redbull" written on T-shirts, hats and coffee mugs, they charge several euro for sugared water, if you want to learn how to sell nothing for a price, go learn marketing at Redbull.

Somehow, even the cheapest camera models are very expensive for what it does for its owner, relative to other kind of products. Cars, for example contains a lot of R&D, and a lot of material (big engine, chassis, design of exterior, lighting, interior comfort, LCD panel, user interface sofware, sensors, ABS, airbags, tires etc etc etc..). In some cases, a camera system is priced as high as a small/medium car.

Overall, I am not sure if any of the new camera models appeal to me: a small mother board (smaller and cheaper than any mother board in a PC) with a small ARM based CPU not even as powerful as small tablet PC, a bunch of DRAM, a small image sensor, a few buttons, packaged into a small metal (or plastic) frame into a plastic body, the whole thing worth something like $250 to $350 bill of material. Multiply that cost by 3 or 4 and you get the price without advertising, add 50% to pay off promotional efforts (DPReview bla-bla-bla) and you get a small brick that costs 10 times the bill of materials and give you photographs with 8 stops latitude... The quantity of camera models is there, delivered with quantity of gadget features that no one end up using... Even for a 5 grands cameras, you get on the handle a plastic rubber glued and that costs a few cents and that you have to glue back after a few years of use... Even old Pentax 6x7, with the technology of its time, was better built !

In a healthy market, a medium format camera should be priced less than half of the current prices, a lot more people should have one, there should be much less gadget features, and there should be much much less advertising. I just don't like what's being sold. Leica SL type quality with a large sensor 33x44 , should be the standard at a fraction of the Leica prices. But this is not what we see, what we see is a lot of advertising money being wasted by companies releasing far too many new models with none of the model bringing anything revolutionary over old models. Two or three camera brands would be enough, divide the number of new camera models by 3 or 4, and put more quality and a larger sensor into fewer models. People get sold plastic blobs for several thousand Euro/Dollars, to take pictures...

I'm not old fashion, I just like that if I spend more than 5 grands on a camera system, I get a nicely finished and robust product, not a plastic molded disposable toy that is obsolete in two years because a newer model (as crappy built as the previous one) is released and hyped over and over and over again on DPReview.


Last edited by biz-engineer; 02-15-2019 at 08:35 AM.
02-15-2019, 04:14 PM   #53
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QuoteOriginally posted by biz-engineer Quote
I see a LOT of promotional efforts in all directions, I see much more promotional efforts than engineering efforts. It is a sign that marketing was the way chosen to grow the camera market (like for cosmetics, coca cola, pepsi, redbull).
The question for me, arising from this, is whether the shrinking stand-alone camera market will lead to more or less of this.

Ricoh doesn’t do much “traditional” marketing (in the 21st Century sense of the word) because the revenue doesn’t justify it, but it often gets criticised for what it doesn’t do, in that respect. Other, larger players do a lot of it, but I imagine that reality in the form of reduced revenues will intervene at some stage (Olympus is probably the maker in the worst position, at the moment).

Leica’s marketing is largely embodied in the red dot, but their physical presence is small, so it works for them. Canon’s efforts are essentially association marketing (shoot one of these, and you’ll be like a pro) but it’s expensive, especially when you throw in professional support.

Smart phone camera development is probably doing everybody a favour, by taking away the casual photographer from the target audience. News media opting for smart phone photos is adding to the pressure from the other end, particularly as it’s getting harder for celebrity snooping to legally go about its business.

Ricoh’s decision to go up-market was probably the correct one, to let the product largely speak for itself, when it isn’t being drowned out by DPR.
02-15-2019, 04:33 PM   #54
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If Ricoh would inject a fairly small amount of capital into Pentax so they could hold lens inventory they could release new lenses faster. As it is now they must sell inventory to have the cash to build a stock of a new lens. Consequently they can release only a couple lenses and a camera body each year.

IMO, capital starvation is holding Pentax back. They can survive this way but the risk is, come the first gentle economic breeze, they just dry up and slowly blow away.
02-15-2019, 04:44 PM   #55
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QuoteOriginally posted by RobA_Oz Quote
The question for me, arising from this, is whether the shrinking stand-alone camera market will lead to more or less of this.
I can already see this is happening: the market diminished, but the response was to increase camera prices and spent a great deal of money on promoting mirrorless, without reduction of the number of camera brands, on the contrary there is now more FF models them ever before. We thought that choice would be good for customers, but what happens is that customers now have the choice between an expensive camera system or another expensive camera system. Basically, the industry didn't adapt to market shrink, all camera brands force customers to pay more for cameras that are cheaper to make (mirrorless is cheaper to make).
02-15-2019, 06:49 PM   #56
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QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
IMO, capital starvation is holding Pentax back.
I think it would be more accurate to describe it as attention deficiency. Ricoh Company is spending 9% more on capital assets this fiscal year than last, but SmartVision is 1% of Ricoh Company. To get increased allocations of capital, SmartVision management needs to make a business case for it, which might be a challenge with all the bleeding going on in the camera industry. Far easier to fly below the radar; as long as the division is profitable, Ricoh Company will ignore all the doom and gloom and let SmartVision continue wtih the resources they currently have. Canon and Nikon were able to make the argument that investing in a new mount was necessary to maintain market share, but no CFO is going to approve a major investment to gain share of a shrinking market, especially for a brand with 2% global market share.


To your point of building stockpiles in order to release more new products, that requires making two difficult arguments, one, to accept the cost of slower inventory turnover in order to add to your catalog so overall sales increase, and two, to invest more in new product development to gain market share. In a shrinking market, it takes a larger gain of share to produce enough sales growth to offset increased costs. The risk to SmartVision of going from profitable to unprofitable is deadlier than the risk of losing their existing customer base because they don't release enough new products. The Pentax brand crossed that Rubicon with the release of the D FA * 50, the path from here on is easier to follow.
02-15-2019, 08:34 PM   #57
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QuoteOriginally posted by RGlasel Quote
To your point of building stockpiles in order to release more new products, that requires making two difficult arguments, one, to accept the cost of slower inventory turnover in order to add to your catalog so overall sales increase, and two, to invest more in new product development to gain market share. In a shrinking market, it takes a larger gain of share to produce enough sales growth to offset increased costs. The risk to SmartVision of going from profitable to unprofitable is deadlier than the risk of losing their existing customer base because they don't release enough new products. The Pentax brand crossed that Rubicon with the release of the D FA * 50, the path from here on is easier to follow.
Given the present, and likely continuing, low cost of capital, increasing inventories is probably an easier case to make, especially if it means making your product more easily available to the buyer. Allowing distributors to hold your inventory on your behalf (ie not using their working capital, even if you’re taking up their warehouse space) can reduce your own costs, too, provided you haven’t already paid for the storage.
02-15-2019, 09:00 PM   #58
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QuoteOriginally posted by RobA_Oz Quote
Given the present, and likely continuing, low cost of capital, increasing inventories is probably an easier case to make, especially if it means making your product more easily available to the buyer. Allowing distributors to hold your inventory on your behalf (ie not using their working capital, even if you’re taking up their warehouse space) can reduce your own costs, too, provided you haven’t already paid for the storage.
Ricoh owns it’s Distributors in most markets. The Distributors (RIAC for instance) actually buy the product from the parent company and resell it to Dealers. What would be the financial advantage to storing your (not yet sold) product in a middleman’s warehouse?

AFAIK Pentax hasn’t offered Dealer Financing (another use of Capital, whether borrowed or injected) for decades. That’s most of the reason B&M Dealers don’t stock Pentax.

Last edited by monochrome; 02-15-2019 at 09:22 PM.
02-15-2019, 11:10 PM   #59
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@Clackers Can you come and do your Ricoh CEO impersonation again?
02-16-2019, 12:30 AM   #60
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QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
Ricoh owns it’s Distributors in most markets. The Distributors (RIAC for instance) actually buy the product from the parent company and resell it to Dealers. What would be the financial advantage to storing your (not yet sold) product in a middleman’s warehouse?

AFAIK Pentax hasn’t offered Dealer Financing (another use of Capital, whether borrowed or injected) for decades. That’s most of the reason B&M Dealers don’t stock Pentax.
OK. I wasn't aware of that arrangement. In Australia, the distributor is CR Kennedy, which is a separate organisation. As I thought I indicated, using someone else's storage facilities means you don't have to have your own.

Dealer financing would have to be at an attractive rate, obviously. Current bank interest rates are shown here – from the looks of things, Turkey looks the most attractive from that viewpoint, but maybe not from other considerations. Japanese rates are negative at the moment, so perhaps everywhere looks good to Ricoh.
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