[Winder]

https://www.fujirumors.com/nikkei-japanese-camera-industry-strangles-itself-...nction-unless/

[ramseybuckeye]

They mention Fujifilm as not seeing a sales decline, but I have to expect they could have big losses trying to pay for all the new product launches. Maybe not, but it seems as though Fuji and Sony are in an arms race. Of course Canon and Nikon have joined that race in mirrorless which seems almost suicidal.

Hopefully Pentax is on the right path. Ironically the Olympus sale may be the best thing to happen to them. Sounds like the new owners may be inheriting a lot of future products that most of the R&D is complete on. But of course we don’t know the details.

[clackers]

The mention Fujifilm as not seeing a sales decline, but I have to expect they could have big losses trying to pay for all the new product launches

But we know from Fujifilm's own reports there is a sales decline, and that the Instax film products are what's keeping them in the black at all ...

Fujifilm FY2020/3 Q1 Financial Results: Strong GFX100 and X-T30 Sales, but Severe Market Conditions Make Revenue Fall 15% - Fuji Rumors

[monochrome]

Look at the actual article on Statista. The vast majority of the decline was compact cameras. We’ve known that happened for years now. I think in the peak year (before 2010) something like 125 miliion compact cameras alone were sold. The vast majority of this decline is simply the collapse of the compact camera market. ILC sales hhave declined around 50% over the shown period.

Ricoh wrote down (took a charge against Earnings for Impaired Facilities) the compact camera facilities in 2018. Clearly the industry is grossly overcapitalized but Ricoh is probably OK due in part to Hoya taking so much Japan P&E (old Pentax “Factory in a Park”), and their already lean and mean structure.

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Last edited by monochrome; 07-24-2020 at 04:03 PM.

[Fontan]

Probably? 😐

[clackers]

Probably? 😐

Well, they've already downsized long ago to match the downturn in the industry, have a look at the problems facing Nikon who still have to do it, from a higher base:

"Nikon's imaging unit, which has focused on digital cameras, finished the fiscal year that ended in March with an operating loss of 17.1 billion yen ($158.7 million), down from a profit of 22 billion yen the previous year. In November, the unit drafted a rebuilding plan focused on the "pro-hobby class," which consumes 3 million interchangeable lenses per year. It aims to cut 50 billion yen from its fiscal 2019 operating costs by the end of fiscal 2022. The cuts will come from a reorganization of production plants, a narrowing of products and a personnel reduction."

[ramseybuckeye]

But we know from Fujifilm's own reports there is a sales decline, and that the Instax film products are what's keeping them in the black at all ...

Fujifilm FY2020/3 Q1 Financial Results: Strong GFX100 and X-T30 Sales, but Severe Market Conditions Make Revenue Fall 15% - Fuji Rumors

I don’t know how much can be left in the Intax fad, the second hand market is flooded with them. But they are so cheap they probably have a massive stockpile of them ready for the Christmas season.

[beholder3]

It is more than a little tabloid style to pick the one year, where sales had their all-time high and compare it to today, without references to pre peak situation.

Yes, it is bad for Sony, Fuji and all those struggling makers, but a targeted comparison to 2010 can not be serious.

[Winder]

They mention Fujifilm as not seeing a sales decline, but I have to expect they could have big losses trying to pay for all the new product launches. Maybe not, but it seems as though Fuji and Sony are in an arms race. Of course Canon and Nikon have joined that race in mirrorless which seems almost suicidal.

Hopefully Pentax is on the right path. Ironically the Olympus sale may be the best thing to happen to them. Sounds like the new owners may be inheriting a lot of future products that most of the R&D is complete on. But of course we don’t know the details.

Fuji was basically out of ILC market for many years. They were buying Nikon bodies and putting their own CCD (Fuji Super-CCD) sensor in them. They left the market in 2008ish. Fuji announced the X-mount (Xpro-1) in 2011/2012. This is the 10 year anniversary of the Fuji X-mount and when Fuji re-entered the market for ILCs. So in 2011 they sold ZERO ILCs. Not sure how many the will sell in 2021, but more than zero. Over that 10 year period they have had no place to go but up.

[monochrome]

It is more than a little tabloid style to pick the one year, where sales had their all-time high and compare it to today, without references to pre peak situation.

Yes, it is bad for Sony, Fuji and all those struggling makers, but a targeted comparison to 2010 can not be serious.

Indeed. I added some lnks and nfo to my above post

[SSGGeezer]

I don’t know how much can be left in the Intax fad, the second hand market is flooded with them. But they are so cheap they probably have a massive stockpile of them ready for the Christmas season.

Fuji probably loves the second hand Instax market since every time one changes hands, a new single or multi-pack of film will probably be purchased to "check it out and see if it works right" at a minimum. Film is the cash cow there and other than as a novelty, I would prefer a Polaroid SX-70 at about the same price per image Even the Kodak Patent violating instant camera was fairly good. Instant film at a buck per image is pretty good for profit margins.

[Fontan]

Well, they've already downsized long ago to match the downturn in the industry, have a look at the problems facing Nikon who still have to do it, from a higher base:

"Nikon's imaging unit, which has focused on digital cameras, finished the fiscal year that ended in March with an operating loss of 17.1 billion yen ($158.7 million), down from a profit of 22 billion yen the previous year. In November, the unit drafted a rebuilding plan focused on the "pro-hobby class," which consumes 3 million interchangeable lenses per year. It aims to cut 50 billion yen from its fiscal 2019 operating costs by the end of fiscal 2022. The cuts will come from a reorganization of production plants, a narrowing of products and a personnel reduction."

That is a scary thought for the entire industry, let alone for the small players. Did Olympus also take similar measures, I wonder? It is really.a cut throat industry right now with such a huge downturn. When the business is close to 10% of what it was 10 years ago - just 10 years ago! - how feasible is it for the small players to "survive" while turning meaningful amount of profit? I wonder what Ricoh gets out of by keeping Pentax alive in such an environment. I do think that it is not so much the savviness of Pentax but do they really have any other choices? The industry in itself is running of "niches," it seems like.

[monochrome]

That is a scary thought for the entire industry, let alone for the small players. Did Olympus also take similar measures, I wonder? It is really.a cut throat industry right now with such a huge downturn. When the business is close to 10% of what it was 10 years ago - just 10 years ago! - how feasible is it for the small players to "survive" while turning meaningful amount of profit? I wonder what Ricoh gets out of by keeping Pentax alive in such an environment. I do think that it is not so much the savviness of Pentax but do they really have any other choices? The industry in itself is running of "niches," it seems like.

Ricoh earns a consierable amount of goodwill in the home market by maintaining the Ricoh and Pentax camera brands and just from Photography in general. Japan as a culture values documenting life and beauty - through taking and preserving photographs.

After the Tsunami Ricoh collected, digitized and returned lost photographs recovered from affected residences. In the “Save the Memory Project.” 90,000 photographs were returned as of the time this article was posted; a total of 400,000 were digitized. They had a gigantic facility and spent a fortune cataloging these photographs digitally, drying and preserving them and storing them to be retrieved. It was a legitimate selfless public service directly tied to Imaging.

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

[RobA_Oz]

They mention Fujifilm as not seeing a sales decline, but I have to expect they could have big losses trying to pay for all the new product launches.

I suspect there’s a lot of putting on a brave face, with recent announcements. Still, some of those come with considerable costs sunk into product design and development, even if they’re not yet at the production phase.

Bluff can only get you so far, though, as recent circumstances have highlighted.

[clackers]

Fuji was basically out of ILC market for many years. They were buying Nikon bodies and putting their own CCD (Fuji Super-CCD) sensor in them. They left the market in 2008ish. Fuji announced the X-mount (Xpro-1) in 2011/2012. This is the 10 year anniversary of the Fuji X-mount and when Fuji re-entered the market for ILCs. So in 2011 they sold ZERO ILCs. Not sure how many the will sell in 2021, but more than zero. Over that 10 year period they have had no place to go but up.

The idea is not to sell cameras - Olympus sold twice as many as Ricoh last year on their way to losing $150 million - but to generate a profit.

The activist board members at Sony may kick into action as well.