Originally posted by falconeye Some wishful thinking here?
Meanwhile, I checked it up and it is an official news from an established news agency (The official portal of Malaysian National News Agency (BERNAMA)). So, it is as well documented as such a number can actually get.
Here you go:
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BERNAMA - Nikon Targets To Produce 30,000 Units Of D800 Per Month
Note: The news is obviously coming from Zakaria Abdul Wahab (Bernama) when participating at a factory tour at Sendai, Japan, where the D800 is assembled. There seem to have been 30 representatives from the media at this tour, so maybe, more sources for this number will emerge.
Face it, the D800 is a 1 billion $ annual revenue for Nikon.
Never again I want to hear the words "niche" and "full frame" together in one sentence
Update:
The source cites Sendai Nikon President Jiro Saito, so I think, it is a trustworthy source. The figure is even detailed down to the daily production plan (one full frame camera every minute 24/7) and there are another 5000 D4 per month (which if produced thrughout the year which I doubt, would be another 300 million $$ business). Including lenses, Nikon's annual full frame business could be worth 3 billion $$. That's worth 3 weeks of iPhone revenue. Not bad at all ...
UPDATE2:
I found an independent source from another tour member, which is more accurate, uses betetr English and includes photos of the event. It vasically confirms the 30,000 figure, but it is meant to be a maximum capacity. OTOH, the D800 sells like hot cake, so they'll likely produce at full capacity and this si what the article confirms (operation resumed full capacity).
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What goes on inside Nikon's Sendai factory - Crave - CNET Asia Thanks for the updates. Here yet another datapoint to discuss over pints of beer...
"Mirrors are still lucrative. Canon earned 114.8 billion yen ($1.5 billion) in profit by selling 5.9 million traditional SLRs last year, four times the profit it made from compact cameras, according to Nomura Holdings Inc. estimates last month. Nikon earned more from SLRs and lenses last fiscal year than with any other product, according to Nomura." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-07/canon-clinging-to-mirrors-means-opp...y-cameras.html
5.9 million? Wow, that's a big number. Canon's got a bigger market share than Nikon, but still, Nikon's SLR sales must be in the neighborhood of 3-4mil or more, corroborating the other data point of ~300k per month for APS-C. Looking at the profit numbers, Canon's numbers yield ~$254 profit per camera. For argument's sake, let's assume that Nikon's books are similar, but that both make larger margins on FF, say $500 per FF camera. 360,000 x $500 = a cool $180 million. That's still a drop in the bucket of overall profit (likely single % points or overall profit), but still, that's a big drop in a big bucket!
So if Nikon sells 30k D800s per month, that's approximately 29.99k people per month with more money than photographic skill LOL!
Originally posted by elho_cid I just saw this:
Falk Lumo: Wiesn Girls in dirndl ;-)
Which makes you grown man, I'm sorry.
Now back to subject - going FF may or may not help us as photographers and may or may not help Pentax as a brand. The point is that discussing it here is pointless.
But I admit it could be a nice discussion over a glass of beer on the Oktoberferst. :-D
This only proves that Falk is 12 years or older. Nothing more.