[Clavius]

As also Sony and Samsung show such big figures (way bigger than Nikon and Canon) I'm sure this includes their other operations as well (consumer electronics such as TVs etc.)

From the graph I see that the red columns display only the camera-business of each company.

[Asahiflex]

From the graph I see that the red columns display only the camera-business of each company.

My bad... I should have looked farther than the tip of my nose!

[Uluru]

Translation is horrible ...
But we get the point; only Pentax and Canon went trough the storm, but Canon still overburdened with inventory build, or, plenty of old cameras produced they must sell.

Pentax does not have such problem because they were correctly anticipating the storm. This really proves, once and for all, that products like K-01 were limited runs to avoid exactly the problem that has happened to Canon and Nikon. And it also shows why Ricoh Imaging still produces GRs in batches, carefully weighing the situation and rather choosing to undersupply the market (which has a positive psychological side-effect, of a must-have product in high demand).

Pentax now has much more maneuvering space and speed.

[gazonk]

They have been strong n the Home market, at least disproportionately strong there. Good news. Now, can they improve their infrastructurevhere in the US?

I was shocked to see how weak they are in the US on my recent trip to USA and Canada. I went to B&H and bought myself a DA15 (which they had in stock - good!), and I was happy to see that they actually had a stand where I could try a few lenses on my camera (I could try the DA12-24 but not the DA15), but if I didn't miss anything, there were no K-5s or 645Ds to admire and try, just K-50s. And the stand was very small compared to Nikon, Canon, Sony, Olympus or Panasonic. Even though Pentax doesn't have a strong presence here in Norway, they're more visible in Norway's largest shop, with even a 645D on display behind glass.

Another interesting (but very unscientific) observation was that it seems to me that the DSLR/mirrorless ratio is higher in USA and Canada than in Europe. So it's a shame that Pentax has so little presence in a market that still seems to prefer the traditional DSLR...

[mecrox]

Translation is horrible ...
But we get the point; only Pentax and Canon went trough the storm, but Canon still overburdened with inventory build, or, plenty of old cameras produced they must sell.

Pentax does not have such problem because they were correctly anticipating the storm. This really proves, once and for all, that products like K-01 were limited runs to avoid exactly the problem that has happened to Canon and Nikon. And it also shows why Ricoh Imaging still produces GRs in batches, carefully weighing the situation and rather choosing to undersupply the market (which has a positive psychological side-effect, of a must-have product in high demand).

Pentax now has much more maneuvering space and speed.

The storm is only beginning. It will be a few years before the shape of a new landscape becomes fully apparent. All the camera-makers will get battered. That's partly because, as many have said, the camera market has just about reached saturation point, the world economy is unwell and the upgrade cycle has slowed a great deal since modern cameras are generally so good. The gold rush years are over for every camera company.

Maybe best to be a little careful with these figures. Companies like to show themselves in the best light and we (or most of us) are not forensic accountants. Moreover, as Thom Hogan points out, some seem to be forecasting exceptional end-of-year quarters to make up for losses, but since each company can only achieve most of this by taking growth from another company, several of these projections will turn out to be wide of the mark.

In addition, I wonder about these home market / export splits. They sound all wrong. I wonder whether the figures in that article are from each company's whole imaging or digital division, which often includes a host of other products in addition to cameras, from industrial machinery to batteries or TVs. In other words, a whole division's home/export split might be 80/20, for example, but within that the camera part's split was in fact 50/50 but this is not broken out in the figures.

[snake]

I don't believe any of these numbers. Especially since the Olympus scandal, it's been revealed and believed that cooking books is not something Japan is immune to and not only that, it's embedded in the corporate culture.

[Uluru]

The storm is only beginning. It will be a few years before the shape of a new landscape becomes fully apparent.

Yes, that is true. But let's not forget that term storm is relative; it is not only defined by the strength of the wind and height of the waves, but also by the construction of the boat. What is storm for one boat, is just rougher weather for another.
Many camera companies will now start severe cutting; of lineup, of inventory, of future production plans, etc. They will also shrink in size. However, if Nikon wants to shrink 25% in size of products and operations, the effect for Nikon is far more severe than for Pentax/Ricoh, who isn't even up to 25% of Nikon's overall product line and operations.
Sometimes it's good to be small; you can find a safe shoal to hide your boat, which is just too small port of call for a big, heavy dreadnought.

[MouLaG Ôfr]

The French website "les numeriques" has published an analysis of the financial results of the camera manufacturers the Q1 for the fiscal year 2014.
Résultats financiers trimestriels des constructeurs photo

One interesting fact: 88% of the camera related revenue of Ricoh(Ricoh-Pentax Imaging, whatever you call it) is still coming from Japan! The second market would be Europe with 4.8%!
Wow!! It's easy to understand the attention given to the domestic market.

Don't give any credit to this article from "Les numériques", those informations aren't reliable at all !
Those journalists don't know of what they are speaking...

• the activity "other = digital cameras" concerns not only photo cameras from Ricoh and Pentax but also and firstly the FA surveillance cameras from Ricoh; this business accounts for only about 8% from the total activities from Ricoh
  => see Appendix A1
  
  
• the Pentax part is only about 11% from this amount (it is finally +/- 0,9% of the total assets of Ricoh)
  => see page 6 "Consolidated Sales by product lines"
  
  
• the 4 last years, because of the financial and economic crisis, are years of continued decline of the total assets and sales for Ricoh
  => see "Financial highlights"
  
• the "numbers" of "Les Numériques" are based on ONE quarter (Q1 FY 2014 = 04-01-13 to 06-30-13)
  => it is not representative, but perhaps the beginning of a trend reversal ...

So the "thrill of the Pentax-Ricoh photo-market" seen by "Les Numériques" is ... some kind of nothing !

No one can say if the cameras and / or photo market increases, because Ricoh does NOT communicate on those informations !

[monochrome]

Ricoh has three more quarters to go in its announced retrenchment, in which 10,000 of 88,000 global employees were laid off and many product lines were consolidated. The stick price has increased roughly 50% in 12 months as a result.

[thibs]

Don't give any credit to this article from "Les numériques", those informations aren't reliable at all !
Those journalists don't know of what they are speaking...

• the activity "other = digital cameras" concerns not only photo cameras from Ricoh and Pentax but also and firstly the FA surveillance cameras from Ricoh; this business accounts for only about 8% from the total activities from Ricoh
  => see Appendix A1
  
  
• the Pentax part is only about 11% from this amount (it is finally +/- 0,9% of the total assets of Ricoh)
  => see page 6 "Consolidated Sales by product lines"
  
  
• the 4 last years, because of the financial and economic crisis, are years of continued decline of the total assets and sales for Ricoh
  => see "Financial highlights"
  
• the "numbers" of "Les Numériques" are based on ONE quarter (Q1 FY 2014 = 04-01-13 to 06-30-13)
  => it is not representative, but perhaps the beginning of a trend reversal ...

So the "thrill of the Pentax-Ricoh photo-market" seen by "Les Numériques" is ... some kind of nothing !

No one can say if the cameras and / or photo market increases, because Ricoh does NOT communicate on those informations !

I agree MoulagÔfr (btw we should meet and discuss I'm located very near you) but this is probably the same for other companies, although not to that extend.
A lot of optics companies (including 'ours' camera oriented ones) have security cam business and others like CD/DVD/BD lenses, phones lenses etc.

[noVICE]

Don't give any credit to this article from "Les numériques", those informations aren't reliable at all !
Those journalists don't know of what they are speaking...
[/B]

Thanks for looking into that MouLag, I personally had my doubts with these statistics. The curious thing to me is that during my travels in Japan I can't say that I noticed a dramatic rise in the proportion of photographers using Pentax gear. I don't doubt that Japan is the stronghold for Pentax, but every camera store I went into had an equal number of other brands stocked and I only saw a handful of people even looking at the Pentax gear in store. There is still fierce competition over there and CaNikon still seem to draw the most attention. If there is someone on the forums who lives in Japan who can comment further on this please do!

My overall point (a little off topic sorry), is that the clear difference between Pentax in Japan vs Pentax in Australia (for example) is simply the range of products on display in store. More to the point, there seems to be a stronger second-hand market for Pentax in Japan with smaller B&M shops offering a serious range of older products. I can't help thinking that if Australian stores had the same range on the floor there would be a dramatic increase in sales. The increase in Pentax stock would then have a flow-on effect where the shop owner would be under more pressure to sell Pentax items (as they would represent a decent portion of their inventory) and this may result in salespeople being more aware of selling Pentax to consumers. Currently in Australia I will walk into a shop and be greeted by a barrage of Nikon, Canon and Sony advertising... sometimes even Leica. The Pentax section is usually about 1 metre wide; only has 3-5 lenses (if you are lucky) that are made by Pentax; usually 2 Sigma Lenses; and often the K50 (or equivalent). This silly thing about this is that Pentax needs to focus on drawing in NEW customers and who in their right mind is going to buy a camera from the "little section in the corner" with only a couple of lenses on display? To make matters worse, the salespeople are often biased against Pentax and with such a limited investment in the brand by the shop itself there is little pressure on them to spruik for Pentax. If some of the more prominent stores offered a decent range of new items as well as some second hand ones I feel that the brand would present as better value for money. On a side note I would admit that I can be an impulsive shopper, but I know that there are many Pentaxians out there that if they were presented a lens to touch and try out (like the DA 15 limited for example) it would be very hard to walk out of the store without it if the price was competitive.

Sorry for the rant, I guess I am sick of having to order my lenses from another country (usually without even getting to try them out) just because many of my local stores don't carry a decent range of Pentax gear. When you see graphs that show how poorly the brand is doing outside of Japan (if it is somewhat accurate) it seems ridiculous that Pentax does not replicate what happens in Japan in other countries.

Rant over.

[Zav]

It makes me wonder if the CCTV activity of Pentax was passed to Ricoh as well.

[JPT]

If there is someone on the forums who lives in Japan who can comment further on this please do!

When were you in Japan? The big improvement came around the time the K-30 was introduced. They've advertised the K-30, Q10 and Q7 on TV and shipped models of all the colours to the big stores, which makes for quite an eye-catching display. I saw a lot more interest in Pentax after that. In fact, I know three other people in my office who have a Pentax now, and I had nothing to do with persuading them. I'm pretty sure Pentax is selling more cameras now.

I agree that these figures are difficult to really draw conclusions from because of the way each company divides its business in different ways. Actually, it makes me wonder if Ricoh Imaging will be reported as a separate item in future. The good news is that Ricoh is healthy overall, so they can afford to invest in their camera business, and that's not the case with every company.

[Mistral75]

It makes me wonder if the CCTV activity of Pentax was passed to Ricoh as well.

Yes it was: Home | Close Circuit TV Lens – Pentax Ricoh Imaging

See also Pentax Ricoh America's Corp-CCTV Division

[Docrwm]

When were you in Japan? The big improvement came around the time the K-30 was introduced. They've advertised the K-30, Q10 and Q7 on TV and shipped models of all the colours to the big stores, which makes for quite an eye-catching display. I saw a lot more interest in Pentax after that. In fact, I know three other people in my office who have a Pentax now, and I had nothing to do with persuading them. I'm pretty sure Pentax is selling more cameras now.

I agree that these figures are difficult to really draw conclusions from because of the way each company divides its business in different ways. Actually, it makes me wonder if Ricoh Imaging will be reported as a separate item in future. The good news is that Ricoh is healthy overall, so they can afford to invest in their camera business, and that's not the case with every company.

The comments I got from several Pentax USA reps that I had a chance to speak with, that seemed to know what they were talking about <SHOCK>, was that the K-30 was selling FAR better than they had anticipated. They chalked it up to price+design+style.