[reh321]

Canon's operating profit is on track to sink 40% this year to slightly over 200 billion yen ($1.85 billion), Nikkei has learned, amid a slowing European economy and slumping chip market.

Canon's profit likely to slide 40% on European slowdown - Nikkei Asian Review

and yet

latest global market share: Canon 40.5 %, Nikon 19.1 %, Sony 17.7 %

Digital camera market down 22% for 2018, the latest global market share: Canon 40.5 %, Nikon 19.1 %, Sony 17.7 % - Nikon Rumors

[tokyoscape]

Old established imaging companies in Japan really need to change and or adapt their business model fast or risk become the next Kodak.

[photoptimist]

Old established imaging companies in Japan really need to change and or adapt their business model fast or risk become the next Kodak.

But they don't. Advanced standalone cameras have ALWAYS been a niche product with only a fraction of the consumer population owning one, The size of that niche grew for a while and is now shrinking.

But there's no way that simple cameras (whether brownies, polaroids, P&Ss, instax, or even smartphones) can ever replace DSLR/MILCs. Even if someone made a 100 MPix smartphone camera, it would still lack the body of an advanced camera which is a huge part of the product for "serious" photography.

Their business model is fine but they do need to modulate investment for an era of lower sales and product maturation.

[disconnekt]

The sub-$1000 camera segment are always the first to suffer, especially now in the "Age of The Iphones (and the like)", any new phone release that flaunts a *huge new improvement (if any) over previous versions/"exciting" new feature or gimmick* are going to draw people away from the dslr world because of a convenience (to a degree), like "why would I spend $1K on a new phone on top of another $1K for a Dslr when my new phone is good enough for XYZ"

[RJDavis-OK]

The sub-$1000 camera segment are always the first to suffer, especially now in the "Age of The Iphones (and the like)", any new phone release that flaunts a *huge new improvement (if any) over previous versions/"exciting" new feature or gimmick* are going to draw people away from the dslr world because of a convenience (to a degree), like "why would I spend $1K on a new phone on top of another $1K for a Dslr when my new phone is good enough for XYZ"

There have been several instances where I have shown someone a picture of this or that using my phone. They say "wow, I can't believe you took that with an iPhone" and I say "I didn't, I took with my DSLR". There is just not much comparison for an amateur photographer; point and shoot photography, maybe.

[tokyoscape]

...Their business model is fine but they do need to modulate investment for an era of lower sales and product maturation.

No one here knowing exactly what will work for the changing market. So I only learn from the mistake the other had done. Kodak file for bankruptcy while FujiFilm expand their knowlage to Medication science and many more which we all see they are still keep on trying.

[RobA_Oz]

Disposable income, economic confidence, convenience, commitment, work/operational efficiency/effectiveness etc all drive standalone camera purchase decisions. Canon hasn’t lost its market dominance in spite of some of those factors running counter to its camera sales. All makers will have been affected by some, of course.

We’re in the incremental progress area of current technologies. Without a major technology breakthrough, or the emergence of a major new market, gee-whizzery like Sony’s new A7R4 isn’t going to have a major impact on sales or market share.

Anyway, as has been noted many times in the past and for the reasons stated, Nikon is probably the one to watch more closely.

[monochrome]

No one here knowing exactly what will work for the changing market. So I only learn from the mistake the other had done. Kodak file for bankruptcy while FujiFilm expand their knowlage to Medication science and many more which we all see they are still keep on trying.

Kodak invented digital image capture, but they couldn’t overcome legacy pension obligations left over from the massive chemical and film operations digital imaging replaced.

[Paul the Sunman]

Canon's profit likely to slide 40% on European slowdown - Nikkei Asian Review

Is the camera business even a significant part of Canon's overall portfolio these days? I would be interested to know the figures.

[Rondec]

Is the camera business even a significant part of Canon's overall portfolio these days? I would be interested to know the figures.

Copiers and printers can't be doing great right now either. I think since they also have sensor fabs the whole digital imaging has been a decent part of their business, with both still cameras and camcorders.

Everything just really points to a new normal with a return to the slower sales of the past. No amount of investment in MILCs or in 100 million megapixel cameras is going to turn around the slide. The big companies are just going to have to "resize" their camera manufacturing to meet current demands rather than those of five years ago.

[biz-engineer]

The big companies are just going to have to "resize" their camera manufacturing to meet current demands rather than those of five years ago.

Or, attack market share of others by controlling advertising channels, like Sony are doing. The goal of Sony is to grow at the expense of Canon & Nikon, in order to compensate for the smaller available market.

[ffking]

Competition is an interesting beast which takes many forms. You can have lack of competition as in the Soviet command economy where things ere very cheap because of economies of scale, but innovation was slow or non-existent because sales ere guarranteed.

Then you can have supposedly competing companies price-fixing, like the airines used to do to make sure they didn't engage in a race to the bottom, putting safety (or profits, dependiing on your take) at risk.

Then you can have a regulated market,which, to a greateror lesser extent, where competition between manufacturers drives innovation and competition between outlets keeps prices down for consumers.

Then you can deregulate the market(s) completely and risk coming full circle to a monopoly, only this one keeps prices high and uses profits to stifle or buy out rivals.

I think that when consumers talk about competition being good, they mean the third option - I think when business owners talk about it they mean the fourth option.

So, as consumers, what we actually want is companies notgoing after market share, but companies building a product that satisfies our needs and wishes and thereby gaining market share. To my mind, Sony are a little over aggressive and Canon are a little too interested in the bottom line rather than customer satisfaction - but then Nikon were complacent before the rise of Canon, who were quite aggressive before they reached the top spot.

So the risk for Sony, as I said in another place, is that when they start to reach the top of their natural customer base and no longer have the increasing sales to power R&D - will they actualy be sufficiently profitable? Canon, on the other hand, need to ake up and stop letting gthe accountants run things. Ricoh need largely to do what they are doing, but come up with some reason why new customers should invest in Pentax gear.

[jimr-pdx]

The "good enough" concept that has slowed camera-replacement sales also plays a different role. AI makes phone cameras look better than they are via blur & other features /tricks so who needs real bokeh? I like my micro4:3 for size, but some of their lenses are almost criminally undercorrected - distortion and CA are fixed before users see the results unless you use "unauthorized" image converters. Results are good enough, so corrections are accepted and some very expensive lenses are praised for their optical qualities. Pentax &c do this too but most of those can be turned on/off in the menus.

I came back to Pentax (like thay hoped some would!) in part because allowing AI to fix my images automagically isn't "good enough" for my elitist/purist comfort.

[Ontarian50]

Old established imaging companies in Japan really need to change and or adapt their business model fast or risk become the next Kodak.

The loss of Kodak as we knew them is certainly a sad saga for we photographers.

However, I'm often struck by the number of people who blurt out the name of Kodak when talking about companies that didn't see the future coming, and adapt to it. Frequently they say something like, "Kodak didn't see digital photography coming".

Of course, they're often perhaps a bit too young to realize that Kodak invented the digital camera. Electronic image capture was inevitable, and Kodak used their enormous R&D assets to make it happen first.

Unfortunately, those early DCS cameras were based on Nikon film bodies, simply because there was no way any US company could manufacture their own SLR and lenses at that time. It was inevitable that the Japanese manufacturers who made the cameras and lenses, would eventually make the whole digital camera system. It was probably a pipe dream that Kodak would be able to keep ahead of them, especially since they had to have the cameras made for them.

The fact is Kodak were the inventors of the device that was their undoing. But if they hadn't done it in 1991, someone else would have shortly thereafter.

Perhaps instead of denigrating the name of Kodak, we should probably be honouring their achievements - making photography accessible to masses, providing high quality film products for decades, and for eventually ushering in the electronic capture era.

[reh321]

The loss of Kodak as we knew them is certainly a sad saga for we photographers.

Kodak invented amateur photography ... but they never controlled it.

I don't remember much from the 1950's - by the 1960's Kodak was producing only Instamatics, and by the 1970's they had given up on competing with Japanese companies .... what cameras they did sell were made in Asia by someone. By the time the Digital Age got going, Kodak had long since abandoned camera production to Asian companies, and they were in a very weak position to compete.