[Wheatfield]

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.

That would definitely explain their first quarter blip. Making the hard decision to shutter a factory and cooking the books somewhat are one time events that won't have a long lasting impact, but will help make 1 quarter not look quite as dire. Moving production to a low labor cost country will definitely help their profitability, but only if they are selling product. Their slipping market share would indicate that they may not be being as successful there as they need to be,

[Serkevan]

That would definitely explain their first quarter blip. Making the hard decision to shutter a factory and cooking the books somewhat are one time events that won't have a long lasting impact, but will help make 1 quarter not look quite as dire. Moving production to a low labor cost country will definitely help their profitability, but only if they are selling product. Their slipping market share would indicate that they may not be being as successful there as they need to be,

They are selling a quite healthy number of lenses, actually - around 390k units for the time period, and that's almost 1.8 per camera* - so I'm not too concerned with profitability even if it means they'll be a smaller player with a somewhat narrower portfolio of gear on sale.

*This is a good indicator that users of Nikon are now more or less skewing to "enthusiast hobbyists" more than "travel snapshotters". For reference, I think at one point Canikon were selling just under 1.2 lenses per body. That tracks to the vast majority of sales back then being your good old, cheap and cheerful D3000 and 18-55, with a bunch of dual kits (18-55+50-200 or, maybe, 70-300) sprinkled in. Pentax was, IIRC, also at around 1.7-1.8 lenses per body, since we're mostly weirdos with LBA .

[BigMackCam]

Pentax was, IIRC, also at around 1.7-1.8 lenses per body, since we're mostly weirdos with LBA .

... and then, of course, there's the rest - weirdos without LBA

[bogwalker]

... 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 have never hashtagged my Instagram photos with the camera type (TBH, I don't do a lot of hashtagging in general). Since you can only post a picture that is on your camera, it stands to reason the vast majority of photos on that app are taken by cell phones. Most people are thinking about the content of the photo (location, activity). Posting the type of camera won't draw many people to your photo, especially for something as ubiquitous as the iPhone.

The Flickr numbers sound reliable though.

[bogwalker]

With the category of ILC, the accumulated number of people having a DSLR and DSLR mount lenses since 2010 far out-weight the number of mirrorless in use. Not everyone hangs in camera forums lusting after the latest camera fad, for the vast majority of photographers, their DSLR does the job they won't buy a mirrorless camera for the sake of it. Recently I was looking as a video of Rome, recently recorded since the reopening after covid restictions, I see tourists with DSLR hanging on shoulder. It's just marketing who wants us to believe that we need a mirrorless otherwise we can't take picture, or it's not cool, or whatever..

Not sure how you can be sure they are all DSLRs from just people walking by. Some of the mirrorless look a lot like DSLR, you'd have to have some real clear footage to tell the difference.

Also not sure why you're hating on mirrorless so much. I had one for several years, I liked it because that particular model was small and light. With a small zoom I could put it in a jacket pocket. But they discontinued it, and no matter what I was looking at something bigger for a replacement. There really wasn't the price advantage I expected with mirrorless, so I went with my first DSLR (before the mirrorless I had had film SLR and point-and-shoots). Mirrorless has fewer moving parts, same sensors, it's still a contender. I would say public perception is that DSLR is still the cool kid on the block, and mirrorless is considered the outsider.

[biz-engineer]

Also not sure why you're hating on mirrorless so much.

The problem is , I'm not hating mirrorless at all, I wouldn't even mind to buy one. What I report here is what I could observe in the real world where I've been, maybe I went to the wrong places. Where should I go to see more people with mirrorless cameras instead of DSLR? Inside a camera shop?

[jersey]

I suppose it is just your area. I returned from vacations in Krakow in Poland and from my observations DSLR to MILC was like 50:50. DSLR was mostly Canon, MILC was Sony with some Olympus here and there. I think I saw one or two Fujis. No Panasonic. I do not remember seeing Nikon or Pentax at all.


Where I live when I go to main city which is also big touristic attraction, there is more or less same proportion so 50:50 with Canon and Sony taking most of the crowd. Japanese tourists run around with small Sony, Olympus and Fuji cameras, westerners with bigger Sony and DSLRs. Also no Nikon or Pentax. I do not remember when was last time I saw one of those on Gdansk streets.

[BigMackCam]

I'm amazed so many members see that many folks with cameras. I barely see any, and certainly not enough to make any assessment of a split between DSLR and mirrorless users. Perhaps it's because of where I go... If I spent more time in cities or well-known photographic spots, maybe I'd see more; but it's rare that I see anyone using anything other than a smartphone...

[Serkevan]

I'm amazed so many members see that many folks with cameras. I barely see any, and certainly not enough to make any assessment of a split between DSLR and mirrorless users. Perhaps it's because of where I go... If I spent more time in cities or well-known photographic spots, maybe I'd see more; but it's rare that I see anyone using anything other than a smartphone...

Dresden has a famous old town, so it gets a good bunch of tourists... and the natural park right outside is consistently highly-rated, so we also get a lot of hikers as well. In stark contrast, when I go home I barely see any cameras.

[Rondec]

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.

I guess the thing is that Canon and Nikon both launched their mirrorless lines at roughly the same time. For whatever reason, Canon's has been fairly successful, while Nikon's has not been nearly as good. Nikon is forecasting a 12.9 percent market share for this year. Depending on how much work they have done at trimming costs, laying off workers, they could easily turn a nice profit at that level of sales. Leica has a fraction of that and does well because all of their gear they sell for high mark ups.

Nikon probably would like to move up scale and be able to leverage the Nikon name for higher priced cameras and lenses, but it doesn't seem to have worked so far. The other option is to accept the new reality, cut production to match sales.

I am no financial expert, but it does feel to me like Nikon has too many models for the market share they have. I really think they could consolidate to 4 models and their life would be a lot easier.

---------- Post added 08-11-21 at 05:37 AM ----------

I'm amazed so many members see that many folks with cameras. I barely see any, and certainly not enough to make any assessment of a split between DSLR and mirrorless users. Perhaps it's because of where I go... If I spent more time in cities or well-known photographic spots, maybe I'd see more; but it's rare that I see anyone using anything other than a smartphone...

I very seldom see ILCs in normal life. If we travel to parks or places like that I'll often see a few, but even there the majority of people are shooting will cell phone cameras.

[jersey]

Both Krakow Gdansk are famous polish touristic spots. Krakow is old polish capitol with kings castle and Gdansk has its own complicated history, Hanza was making bussiness here, II WW history - lots to see and lots of tourists. Most of course are running around with cellphones, but still cameras are seen pretty often compared to not touristic places.

[ThorSanchez]

I'm amazed so many members see that many folks with cameras. I barely see any, and certainly not enough to make any assessment of a split between DSLR and mirrorless users. Perhaps it's because of where I go... If I spent more time in cities or well-known photographic spots, maybe I'd see more; but it's rare that I see anyone using anything other than a smartphone...

That's the experience I posted a few days ago. I go to a lot of youth soccer matches here in Maryland and Virginia. I would expect a fair number of ILCs because cell phones are still pretty awful for action shots at a distance. But at a typical game there's me, and a very small handful of other parents with cameras instead of cell phones. The parents of my kids' teams seem very appreciative of the shots I post online of the team because they simply don't have any good photos of their kids.

[bogwalker]

I'm amazed so many members see that many folks with cameras. I barely see any, and certainly not enough to make any assessment of a split between DSLR and mirrorless users. Perhaps it's because of where I go... If I spent more time in cities or well-known photographic spots, maybe I'd see more; but it's rare that I see anyone using anything other than a smartphone...

I saw a lot of people with real cameras on my camping trip in Montana and Wyoming, but people specifically go there for the scenery and the animals. Around home in the suburbs I don't see actual cameras, even in local parks, except for my friend.

---------- Post added 08-11-21 at 10:00 AM ----------

... Where should I go to see more people with mirrorless cameras instead of DSLR? Inside a camera shop?

Do camera shops still exist? I just did a search and did find some print shops nearby. Other than that it showed Best Buy, Walmart, Target. It's just a distant memory of being inside a store that specialized in cameras.

[biz-engineer]

Do camera shops still exist?

In Europe, yes, as I can see. That's where I saw mirrorless cameras for sale. Other than that, outdoors I see a lot of DSLR.

[normhead]

I'm pretty are there's a store in London Ontario, Canada that has them in stock. The Camera Sore in Alberta might.