[Serkevan]

I can't find your stats anywhere. I have no idea what they mean, could you post a link?

But I did find this.
The majority of instagram users are between 15 and 29. Perhaps a sign of what's coming, but hardly a sign of what is.

The Flickr numbers are compiled as the number of unique users every day. The only stat for Instagram I found was 95 million users a day. SO what does 120 million Canon users mean? What's the time period?

But clearly from what I did read, Instagram is regarded by 32% of users as a their most important social media site. My suspicion is Flickr is more about photography.

Since I don't know much about Instagram I'll have to leave it to others to tell me if that's correct.

Sorry, I forgot to elaborate ... Ehrwien already explained more or less all of it.
When you talked about the users on Flickr, I thought about how a mobile-oriented platform like Instagram would look (even if the results aren't directly comparable). I was actually pretty surprised when I started going through hashtags; despite being full of young people, the "proper" camera company hashtags are quite more numerous than the iPhone1 ones. That said, I would wager that a lot of the snapshots people take aren't tagged with the brand of phone they were taken with - heck, even I often forget to add any Pentax-related tags to my own uploads. I always write the lens/camera I used for the photo, but without a tag there won't really be detailed analytics AFAIK. I would think that Instagram users who are more about the photography will, on average, tag the gear used on their photos more often.


My point is more that it's hard to get a clear view of usage from a single platform, because its population can be skewed enough that it's not representative of the actual userbase of the device.


1: I mention iPhones because although iPhones aren't super super common outside a few select countries, it's one of the best-selling phone brands (I think Samsung is still the one with most phones sold but I'm not sure). It's definitely well above most other hashtags (Samsung goes a touch behind)...

[StiffLegged]

Market share on its own has almost nothing to do with profitability...

...Nikon is going to have to make some hard decisions regarding their corporate structure in the near future...

What's your basis for these hard decisions? I only ask since you're interested in the actual numbers and Nikon have posted some rather surprising 1st quarter (March-June 2021) results.

[normhead]

My point is more that it's hard to get a clear view of usage from a single platform, because its population can be skewed enough that it's not representative of the actual userbase of the device.

Flickr uses exif to determine camera usage. So you can argue about the importance of thier demographic, but their data collection method is rock solid. Always go with the best you have. But also realize, it's best guess and nothing to take to the bank.

[boriscleto]

The thing I'm curious about is actual use.

on Flickr
1 Apple
2 Canon
3 Nikon
4 Sony

Ricoh, Pentax have moved up the Flickr charts, and are now top 10.
Lieca 154 daily users on Flicker

Ricoh 210 Daily users Pentax 100
Ricoh Pentax has actually moved ahead of Lieca in daily use and should be in the #10 up from #12 or 13 a few months ago.

How is this possible you ask. Flickr doesn't measure what people buy, Flickr measures what people use. Personally I'm using a camera that are minimum 5 years old. So my vote doesn't count in the sales numbers, but it counts on Flickr. Why people are so concerned with sales I'm not sure. What counts most for camera companies is the number of people shooing with their gear. Those people are likely future customers.

Pentax keeps moving up the ladder, not because they are winning in sales, but because they are winning in the number of people using their gear. It would appear that people use their Pentax cameras use their cameras longer (because they are better built, probably). The K-5 still has 39 daily users. The K20D still has 11. The Nikon D7100, the K-5 competitor still has 373 users. The cameras were competitor in 2010. The Sony competitor of the time was the a6400. I can't find a single user on the Flickr list.

So have to wonder, why are folks so obsessed with sales numbers? If you bought a mirrorless, you broke it, you bought anther mirrorless. You are one user, not two. Mirrorless numbers look inflated. More were sold, but fewer are out there.

The next on the list would be google Pixel and Pentax won't be catching them any time soon. But they are well ahead of LG. Nokia, and Motorola phones. Count actual users, not month to month sales. Who cares about people who put their cameras away for their vacations and take them out of the closet twice a year? The value of those sales to the companies are a one time deal. By the time they are reported, they are irrelevant. lens sales would be a better metric for ILCs. That indicates some interest in photography, beyond holiday pictures. But even then, if they don't take pictures in them are they really cameras, or expensive space fillers in closets and drawers?

Ricoh would be higher if they ever added the K-3 III to the Ricoh stats...

[normhead]

Ricoh would be higher if they ever added the K-3 III to the Ricoh stats...

They have a long way to go to catch the Google phones.

[Kozlok]

I think Flickr is a small subset of relatively serious amateurs, and not indicative of camera body sales directly. One area where I think Norm's logic is extremely sound: I think the Flickr users are a lot more likely to have a collection of glass, and not just a kit lens. That's probably where real profits are, so I'd agree with his thesis that Flickr usage is probably very indicative of corporate profitability.

My lens collection dwarfs what I've spent on bodies, and probably Iphones, too.

[Wheatfield]

What's your basis for these hard decisions? I only ask since you're interested in the actual numbers and Nikon have posted some rather surprising 1st quarter (March-June 2021) results.

Unless they have already shuttered factories.....
Nikon has moved from the very top of a very large market to somewhere in the middle of the pack in an increasingly shrinking market.
Their entire supply chain is based on supporting large volume sales. This means multiple factories and distribution centers. As the market shrinks, the large volume companies are going to be forced into (I think the term is) rightsizing for the new reality.
Canon and Sony will be in the same position, but if I am not mistaken, those are much more diversified companies, and may be able to soften their landings more.

[jumbleview]

Eventually, there will be some pain for Canon as well. Sony is a different animal.

Sure, Sony has the Walkman ! (Just kidding).

[Wheatfield]

Sure, Sony has the Walkman ! (Just kidding).

The thing is, Sony was able to shrug and walk away from the Walkmam with no pain.
If a division or product line stops returning base ROI, it gets shuttered.

They didn't drop the Alpha mount because it was making tons of profit.

[StiffLegged]

Unless they have already shuttered factories.....
Nikon has moved from the very top of a very large market to somewhere in the middle of the pack in an increasingly shrinking market.
Their entire supply chain is based on supporting large volume sales. This means multiple factories and distribution centers. As the market shrinks, the large volume companies are going to be forced into (I think the term is) rightsizing for the new reality.
Canon and Sony will be in the same position, but if I am not mistaken, those are much more diversified companies, and may be able to soften their landings more.

Nikon managed to turn a substantial first quarter loss in 2020/21 to a substantial first quarter profit this financial year. But actually making money comes second to a historical market position? Curious.

[Digitalis]

The only stat for Instagram I found was 95 million users a day. SO what does 120 million Canon users mean?

I remember going through an old magazine from the mid 1990's touting Canon making 20 million EF lenses...no one said anything about if anyone actually bought them.

I like to imagine out there somewhere, is a well-heeled eccentric with a house full of lenses somewhere with nary a camera to be found...because he owns so many lenses one shouldn't assume he would dare open the original packaging and actually USE them.

[jersey]

Nikon managed to turn a substantial first quarter loss in 2020/21 to a substantial first quarter profit this financial year. But actually making money comes second to a historical market position? Curious.

It may be. 2020 was a CoVid year, it will falsify companies condition as sales were shrinking due to insecurity, job loss etc so things may looked gloomier then they really are. And I wonder if overall good results (not only for Nikon, but everyone) are not the opposite: people going on shopping spree after restrictions were removed.


I would wait till third quarter or even end of the current fiscal year to see the real results, both for Nikon and Ricoh.

[Serkevan]

Nikon managed to turn a substantial first quarter loss in 2020/21 to a substantial first quarter profit this financial year. But actually making money comes second to a historical market position? Curious.

They also shut down a factory and moved all remaining production outside Japan, if memory serves right. That's part of the painful decisions; it's not an easy path. They'll manage but I guess we'll see a certain slow down in release pace (though not to Pentax levels, obviously).

The operating profit they turned up is due to two things:
First, Covid peaked in February/March and eased up a LOT a bit later due to vaccinations. This delayed the traditional March sales increase to Q1 21/22, according to CIPA data. Moreover, last year no one was buying cameras at this time of the year because we were all locked down, jobs were lost and the economy was in a slump. Comparing negatively to Q1 20/21 would be a feat by itself
Additionally, they deferred expenses to the second half of the year, so they haven't adjusted the forecast for that period.

[beholder3]

Nikon seems to have done the biggest chunk of cost cutting, which shows in the current one-time jump in OI.


Nikon forecasts non-improving unit sales for the whole year - while Canon forecasts growth in unit sales.

Nikon forecasts a current full year OI that is about half of the one they had in 2019, just two years ago. That still is in line with their multi year shrinking trend.

So based on their current performance, yes, they can survive, but no their current products are not anywhere good enough to stop the continued withering.

And for commercial success they do need better products to replace the AF performance-wise market-trailing Z6II and Z7II models - fast. These are making the money, not a Z9.

[Wheatfield]

Nikon managed to turn a substantial first quarter loss in 2020/21 to a substantial first quarter profit this financial year. But actually making money comes second to a historical market position? Curious.

Let's see if that's a blip or a reversal of trend.
We know the market is shrinking, meaning less dollars are being injected into it.
We also know that Nikon is getting a smaller proportion of that shrinking market.

They may have already made the hard choices I alluded to. I don't follow the market that closely.
They may have arranged their financial position to look better than the reality.

You can't look at a single quarter and pretend it represents anything other than a good quarter, especially when the previous several quarters were something of a disaster.
If they put together 3 or 4 good quarters in a row, come back and talk, but in the present market, it means they will have made their hard decisions.