[Kunzite]

[...]
2.16 + 1.89 + 1.06 + 0,94 = 6.05 bn JPY as total sales of Ricoh in Japan under the Pentax brand.

A far far cry indeed from the 75.7 bn JPY for the entire 'Others' business unit. Only 8% of them actually.

I didn't bother to be very accurate, because - as others said - the BCNRanking data is not of high quality to start with. Indeed, I could make a point only if there was a huge difference between the results - and there is, and you confirmed it.

Since there are others source of income for Ricoh Imaging (binoculars, non-consumer products if they weren't moved to Ricoh, etc.) I would guesstimate - with very poor accuracy - that Ricoh Imaging should be less than 1/3rd of Others. Which would explain why they're still calling it Others

---------- Post added 22-02-15 at 01:28 PM ----------

It is not surprising, unfortunately.
Ricoh was striving hard to show profitability in the imaging branch during that period (2012-14).

However, profitability must be taken within a context — what profitability means? Profit means that money earned surpasses money spent. Now answer this: if the company's market share dives sharply down and much quicker than industry's trend, what it then means they have "achieved a profit", despite overall shrinking market?

It can only mean one: their profitability was the cause of their even faster market shrinkage. It sounds almost paradoxical, but there is no other explanation. Simply put, Ricoh did not invest enough to keep the same relative market share, or to gain more of it, but took no preventive actions and operated with very limited expenditures that secured short term profitability, on paper, but long term irreversible loss of the market share in reality.

Let's check the facts - for the current fiscal year, Ricoh allocated 4,300 million Yen to the Others segment, for "Increase production of digital cameras ,etc.". And that doesn't account for R&D expenses and other things.
I wonder why would they want to increase production...
http://ricoh.com/IR/financial_data/securities_report/pdf/AnnualSecuritiesReport_114th.pdf

The short term strategy you're described was Hoya's. You like blaming Ricoh for Hoya doings, don't you?

---

Last edited by Kunzite; 02-22-2015 at 04:29 AM.

[RonHendriks1966]

Here what I give last time about Ricoh camera business around the world. Not a lot outside Japan

Sales Domestic (Japan) 75.7 Billions yens 84,6 % share
Europe, Middle east and Africa 5.5 6.1%
Others 4.6 5.1%
America 3,7 4.1%

Looking at this the other way. Well if in the Japan numbers there is also the lease thing and camerasales in Japan are 50 % of the total camera sales......

Outside of Japan is 13,8 billion yen and this could be the same for Japan.

Total sales are this way 27.6 billion yen and that is 232 million $
For the US market (probably mostly USA and Canada) that is 31,1 million $.

That is a small market. This is for dslr, milc, lenses and P&S together. Now we know that P&S sales are low and Q isn't selling big outside Japan. So for Pentax that means that (close to) 90 % of the sales is dslr and lenses. Not knowing how to devide them, but there is a calculation for that in this thread.

Looking into the figures provided by CIPA (moneywise):
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/dc_e.html

For sales to America's:
DSLR in yen 107,1 billion yen and lenses in yen 108,7 billion yen (FF and aps-c combined however the Pentax lenses are all counted in the aps-c section).
This means a total sale of 215,8 billion yen sales and Pentax made 3,33 billion (90 % of total Pentax sales) of them. That makes it an estimated marketshare of 1,54 %.

For sales to Europe:
DSLR in Yen 112,8 billion yen and lenses in yen 109,1 billion yen. This means a total sale of 221,9 billion yen sales and Pentax made 4,9 billion (90 % of total Pentax sales and ignoring Africa and Middle East, no idea if they are represented there) of them. That makes it an estimated marketshare of 2,2 %.

For Japan the total shipment is 122,6 for dslr and lenses, but then calculation for MILC is more important. This is adding 29 billion yen and totalling to 151,6 billion yen. Making the Pentax share 9,1 %. That looks a little high to me.

So maybe Pentax sales in Japan are in yen's a bitt less then 50 % of total sales. Wich makes sense since a lot of them are Q and lenses for Q and those are cheaper on average.

For the complete market Pentax numbers would go to being 2,6 % of total global market in Yen.

[magkelly]

Declining market share in their most important market calls into question profitability over the long term unless something turns in their favor

Not really. The DSLR market as a whole has been struggling a bit. I think that we've done this well in a tight economy says a lot about the quality of the brand. I don't expect Pentax to rise above Nikon or Canon. But that they're 3rd is a very nice surprise and a sign that Ricoh-Pentax is finally doing something right. They're gaining customers in an ever more tough market. That's not something to sneer at...

[K David]

It looks like Nikon has managed to stay around 40% despite considerable QC issues last year and Canon has taken over Sony's SLT share.

The lesson here is likely one of marketing. Canon, for decades, has had great marketing propping up what are, in all honesty, sub-par cameras. Nikon also has good marketing that makes up for the quality issues they've had. And no, their DSLR issue are not the first time this has happened. The FA production back in the 1980s shipped a lot of units that failed rather quickly and earned the FA a poor reputation as a camera. (Though, in general, I think Nikon makes really good cameras.)

What should bother Ricoh (and Nikon) right now is that Canon's market gain is about the same as the loss felt by Nikon and Ricoh combined. Pentax has never been great at marketing, but clearly they need to hire some marketing guru and give him or her carte blanche to change the company's camera marketing approach. And they should probably also consider letting people who aren't cagey and borderline catatonic in their product enthusiasm give interviews. With the exception of Jim Malcolm, every Ricoh or Pentax person I see give an interview leaves me feeling dead inside about my brand choice. That's probably not the reaction that potential customers want when deciding on a camera.

One other lesson should be how easy it is to get a Canon. You can buy them at Target, Best Buy, Costco, Wal-Mart, and basically everywhere else. And, at the private stores, the Canons sell well because their commission is, I'm told, the highest. Want to buy a Pentax? Great -- go online. That sounds like it shouldn't be a problem, but what amazes me is the number of people who ask me for a camera recommendation and then won't buy a Pentax because they trust exactly NO online sellers -- no Amazon, eBay, B&H, Adorama -- none. There's a significant population of people who will not shop online at all ever for any reason. And a bunch of them are younger than I am, so it's not like the anti-online shopping crowd is a bunch of octogenarians. Pentax needs their bodies in the national chains selling for the same or less than Canons with a commission to the selling company that is higher than the Canon commission. Until then, no salesmen who want to pay the rent will be interested in selling a Pentax before a Canon.

[Adam]

One other lesson should be how easy it is to get a Canon. You can buy them at Target, Best Buy, Costco, Wal-Mart, and basically everywhere else. And, at the private stores, the Canons sell well because their commission is, I'm told, the highest. Want to buy a Pentax? Great -- go online. That sounds like it shouldn't be a problem, but what amazes me is the number of people who ask me for a camera recommendation and then won't buy a Pentax because they trust exactly NO online sellers -- no Amazon, eBay, B&H, Adorama -- none. There's a significant population of people who will not shop online at all ever for any reason. And a bunch of them are younger than I am, so it's not like the anti-online shopping crowd is a bunch of octogenarians. Pentax needs their bodies in the national chains selling for the same or less than Canons with a commission to the selling company that is higher than the Canon commission. Until then, no salesmen who want to pay the rent will be interested in selling a Pentax before a Canon.

In the US, in the past, the Pentax distributor has had terms that were unfavorable for smaller retailers (i.e. high volume and purchasing requirements). I wonder if this still applies.

[RobA_Oz]

The lesson here is likely one of marketing.
... Pentax has never been great at marketing...

One other lesson should be how easy it is to get a Canon. You can buy them at Target, Best Buy, Costco, Wal-Mart, and basically everywhere else. And, at the private stores, the Canons sell well because their commission is, I'm told, the highest. Want to buy a Pentax? Great -- go online. That sounds like it shouldn't be a problem, but what amazes me is the number of people who ask me for a camera recommendation and then won't buy a Pentax because they trust exactly NO online sellers -- no Amazon, eBay, B&H, Adorama -- none. There's a significant population of people who will not shop online at all ever for any reason. And a bunch of them are younger than I am, so it's not like the anti-online shopping crowd is a bunch of octogenarians. Pentax needs their bodies in the national chains selling for the same or less than Canons with a commission to the selling company that is higher than the Canon commission. Until then, no salesmen who want to pay the rent will be interested in selling a Pentax before a Canon.

I don't think that Pentax has NEVER been great at marketing, but how far back do you want to go? In the era before plastic took over camera bodies, they did have great marketing, and their SLR sales eclipsed those of Canon and Nikon by a wide margin, because they covered the whole range of SLRs, and they had a good reputation for build and durability.

Canon DSLRs are everywhere, because they are cheap at the bottom end of the market. I bought an *istD new because I looked hard at the Canon 10D and decided it was insubstantial and over-sized. Unfortunately, most buyers didn't see things the same way. My point is that Pentax occupies a different place in the market, and it probably shouldn't be at the cheap end, where there is volume but not margin. If you want an analogy in the smart phone market, Samsung ships more phones that compete with Apple's but Apple makes higher margins and profits - let's not get distracted by that situation, though, because I use it just to make the point.

I'd be interested to know if there is any hard evidence of Canon's sales commission strategy, because it's something I've suspected for a while, but I think that the paranoia about online sales is more interesting. What you've observed may well be a demographic phenomenon: I don't think that people here or in Europe, particularly younger people, are generally as suspicious of online sales as the people you describe, and the sales position in Japan may well be the result of something similar.

[JPT]

Looking at this the other way. Well if in the Japan numbers there is also the lease thing and camerasales in Japan are 50 % of the total camera sales......

Outside of Japan is 13,8 billion yen and this could be the same for Japan.

Total sales are this way 27.6 billion yen and that is 232 million $
For the US market (probably mostly USA and Canada) that is 31,1 million $.

That is a small market. This is for dslr, milc, lenses and P&S together. Now we know that P&S sales are low and Q isn't selling big outside Japan. So for Pentax that means that (close to) 90 % of the sales is dslr and lenses. Not knowing how to devide them, but there is a calculation for that in this thread.

Looking into the figures provided by CIPA (moneywise):
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/dc_e.html

For sales to America's:
DSLR in yen 107,1 billion yen and lenses in yen 108,7 billion yen (FF and aps-c combined however the Pentax lenses are all counted in the aps-c section).
This means a total sale of 215,8 billion yen sales and Pentax made 3,33 billion (90 % of total Pentax sales) of them. That makes it an estimated marketshare of 1,54 %.

For sales to Europe:
DSLR in Yen 112,8 billion yen and lenses in yen 109,1 billion yen. This means a total sale of 221,9 billion yen sales and Pentax made 4,9 billion (90 % of total Pentax sales and ignoring Africa and Middle East, no idea if they are represented there) of them. That makes it an estimated marketshare of 2,2 %.

For Japan the total shipment is 122,6 for dslr and lenses, but then calculation for MILC is more important. This is adding 29 billion yen and totalling to 151,6 billion yen. Making the Pentax share 9,1 %. That looks a little high to me.

So maybe Pentax sales in Japan are in yen's a bitt less then 50 % of total sales. Wich makes sense since a lot of them are Q and lenses for Q and those are cheaper on average.

For the complete market Pentax numbers would go to being 2,6 % of total global market in Yen.

The 9% market share for Japan looks about right to me. There is no reason to believe that Pentax has had a sales collapse in Japan in the past few years. If you look at the presence in stores, Ricoh's displays are far bigger than before, often as big as Nikon or Canon. You also see more people using Pentax.

The figures being quoted here are from BCN, which collates information from a number of stores, but ones you wouldn't expect to sell many Pentaxes anyway. Pentax always does worse on BCN than other sales indicators.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that Ricoh just addressed a number of Pentaxians' long standing issues at CP+.
- Lack of long zooms
- Slow, unreliable focusing in the high end lenses
- Lack of a full frame camera
That's a pretty good indication that Ricoh is listening to customers and giving them what they want.

[mecrox]

The lesson here is likely one of marketing. Canon, for decades, has had great marketing propping up what are, in all honesty, sub-par cameras. Nikon also has good marketing that makes up for the quality issues they've had. And no, their DSLR issue are not the first time this has happened. The FA production back in the 1980s shipped a lot of units that failed rather quickly and earned the FA a poor reputation as a camera. (Though, in general, I think Nikon makes really good cameras.)

What should bother Ricoh (and Nikon) right now is that Canon's market gain is about the same as the loss felt by Nikon and Ricoh combined. Pentax has never been great at marketing, but clearly they need to hire some marketing guru and give him or her carte blanche to change the company's camera marketing approach. And they should probably also consider letting people who aren't cagey and borderline catatonic in their product enthusiasm give interviews. With the exception of Jim Malcolm, every Ricoh or Pentax person I see give an interview leaves me feeling dead inside about my brand choice. That's probably not the reaction that potential customers want when deciding on a camera.

One other lesson should be how easy it is to get a Canon. You can buy them at Target, Best Buy, Costco, Wal-Mart, and basically everywhere else. And, at the private stores, the Canons sell well because their commission is, I'm told, the highest. Want to buy a Pentax? Great -- go online. That sounds like it shouldn't be a problem, but what amazes me is the number of people who ask me for a camera recommendation and then won't buy a Pentax because they trust exactly NO online sellers -- no Amazon, eBay, B&H, Adorama -- none. There's a significant population of people who will not shop online at all ever for any reason. And a bunch of them are younger than I am, so it's not like the anti-online shopping crowd is a bunch of octogenarians. Pentax needs their bodies in the national chains selling for the same or less than Canons with a commission to the selling company that is higher than the Canon commission. Until then, no salesmen who want to pay the rent will be interested in selling a Pentax before a Canon.

There are plenty of people who'd prefer not to buy certain things online, including cameras. That's perfectly understandable for all kinds of reasons. There are also folks who don't mind buying online but only after they've been able to scope out what they want in a store. They then go online in search of the cheapest deal. This applies to far more than cameras of course. It's up to the camera companies to sort that one out, if they want to stay in business. Where I am the perennial problem is that Pentax just isn't widely known or available (in fact it seems quite hard to find Pentax stocked in a store). That hasn't changed much since Ricoh took over and until it does, it's hard to see Ricoh growing their market here. Multiply that across a few countries, and it's hard to see them growing much at all.

My epiphany was a recent visit to an amply stocked store in the duty-free airside zone at London Heathrow airport. There was every kind of camera from every single major manufacturer, from Leica S3s and Canon IDxes on down, with all the top-end lenses too, but no Pentax or Ricoh cameras in the store at all, not one. These guys just don't seem to want to sell their products is the take-away from that. TBH, what Ricoh's strategy might be in this part of the world is a complete mystery.

One can see the problem here. You're a talented budding photographer and would love to turn professional in some way but you haven't the funds. Your great aunt Mabel trips over the cat and a few months later you learn that she's left you a legacy of $15,000, enough for a dream camera system with plenty to spare. Do you buy Canon, a no-brainer risk-wise and which can offer you every lens and gizmo you could want, or buy Pentax which, er, can't and very likely never will and which is something of an unknown quantity as well. There is quite a gap to bridge here and for as long as Pentax remains an unknown quantity it won't really get bridged. For most folks, that likely means Pentax is a brand they'd sink a bit into but it is not a brand they'd ever risk sinking a lot into. The FF sell won't be easy, imho.

[mee]

The longer these threads last it makes everyone here read similar to the dpr guys, just specifically focused on pentax -- Not so much focused about photography, but on the gadgets/hardware/business.

The onion needs to do a report that Pentax users discovered their cameras not only have incredible measurements on paper but can actually take photographs too!


I wonder if News and rumors was moved further down in the forum listings, if that would be beneficial for the site as a whole? I mean does anyone come here, click on the top subforum (news and rumors), read all the bizarre arm chair quarterbacking on going here and then think this site isnt for them?

[mecrox]

The longer these threads last it makes everyone here read similar to the dpr guys, just specifically focused on pentax -- Not so much focused about photography, but on the gadgets/hardware/business.

The onion needs to do a report that Pentax users discovered their cameras not only have incredible measurements on paper but can actually take photographs too!


I wonder if News and rumors was moved further down in the forum listings, if that would be beneficial for the site as a whole? I mean does anyone come here, click on the top subforum (news and rumors), read all the bizarre arm chair quarterbacking on going here and then think this site isnt for them?

Each to their own. I go to Fred Miranda and see 10,000 posts about the finer points of Otus versus Nikon by folks who'll never own or use either, and who may not even own a camera, and I decide it isn't for me. A bit of armchair quarterbacking is most refreshing sometimes and far more satisfying than talking about test charts and MFT results. There's nothing more therapeutic than talking complete BS for half an hour, which most posts are on any forum about anything since absolutely no one has the full picture. Just a POV.

[magkelly]

One can see the problem here. You're a talented budding photographer and would love to turn professional in some way but you haven't the funds. Your great aunt Mabel trips over the cat and a few months later you learn that she's left you a legacy of $15,000, enough for a dream camera system with plenty to spare. Do you buy Canon, a no-brainer risk-wise and which can offer you every lens and gizmo you could want, or buy Pentax which, er, can't and very likely never well and which is something of an unknown quantity as well. There is quite a gap to bridge here and for as long as Pentax remains an unknown quantity it won't really get bridged. For most folks, that likely means Pentax is a brand they'd sink a bit into but it is not a brand they'd ever risk sinking a lot into. The FF sell won't be easy, imho.

But it is getting bridged. That's the point. I'm not the only photographer on this board making a living with Pentax gear. It was partly because I had limited funds that I went Pentax. I literally would not be a pro now if it was not for Pentax. I priced Nikon gear. Casually looked at Canon just to compare but admittedly I'm not a Canon fan and wouldn't have gone Canon vs Nikon. I just could not afford it. For all the advantages Nikon can offer they were simply priced too high for my budget for me to be able to even consider a similar kit of theirs. I'm tooting Pentax's horn totally, but that's because I have reason to.

They gave me my dream job and I have managed to do it just fine with their gear. I don't really think Pentax is aiming for the pro market much anyway. I think they want the entry level consumer and the serious hobbyist. If they catch a few pros too, great, but I don't think they're trying to be Nikon or Canon, which has been a fortunate thing for me as it has actually made it possible for me to own their gear.

If I had 15K I still would not be wasting it on Nikon gear. I would be using it to build my business somehow but I would have still gone Pentax. It just made sense to me. Pentax gear is excellent. I can do almost anything with it except very high end sports photography maybe and it's considerably less than Canon or Nikon. It irritates me sometimes that people make this assumption that somehow Pentax is inferior somehow for working photographers because as one I just don't find it to be. Not really...

[mecrox]

But it is getting bridged. That's the point. I'm not the only photographer on this board making a living with Pentax gear. It was partly because I had limited funds that I went Pentax. I literally would not be a pro now if it was not for Pentax. I priced Nikon gear. Casually looked at Canon just to compare but admittedly I'm not a Canon fan and wouldn't have gone Canon vs Nikon. I just could not afford it. For all the advantages Nikon can offer they were simply priced too high for my budget for me to be able to even consider a similar kit of theirs. I'm tooting Pentax's horn totally, but that's because I have reason to.

They gave me my dream job and I have managed to do it just fine with their gear. I don't really think Pentax is aiming for the pro market much anyway. I think they want the entry level consumer and the serious hobbyist. If they catch a few pros too, great, but I don't think they're trying to be Nikon or Canon, which has been a fortunate thing for me as it has actually made it possible for me to own their gear.

If I had 15K I still would not be wasting it on Nikon gear. I would be using it to build my business somehow but I would have still gone Pentax. It just made sense to me. Pentax gear is excellent. I can do almost anything with it except very high end sports photography maybe and it's considerably less than Canon or Nikon. It irritates me sometimes that people make this assumption that somehow Pentax is inferior somehow for working photographers because as one I just don't find it to be. Not really...

Good for you, that's very good news, and without an Aunt Mabel I expect I would do that, too. But I was really thinking of that upcoming FF system when suddenly the financial stakes are a lot higher. It looks as if it might be quite a tough sell for the reason I gave. That could be totally mistaken of course and in any case it doesn't mean that Pentax gear isn't very good, just that it's a comparatively harder sell for Pentax (I think).

[gazonk]

It's important to understand how BCN Ranking gathers its data. On this page, they list 22 retailers that participate in their survey.

Thank you for pointing that out! I glanced through a few pages of "Pentax is doooomed" posts here without noticing that it was all based on BCN numbers, which - as you point out - don't really represent the Japanese market.

(K-3 is number 4 right now on kakaku.com, and K-50 #14)

---------- Post added 23rd Feb 2015 at 10:49 ----------

There's a bar chart near the bottom of this page: http://kakaku.com/camera/digital-slr-camera/ which seems to indicate market shares with 8.59% for Pentax. Would someone who knows Japanese care to comment what it shows?

[Kunzite]

Indeed, is important to know that, while BCNRanking is taking their data from a large number of stores, said data lacks statistics quality - the stores are not sampled at random.
About kakaku.com... since not so long ago, most of the time there is a Pentax camera (sometimes even two - like right now for example) on the first page/first 20 entries on the ILC sales ranking. Yes, MILCs are included despite the title.
http://kakaku.com/camera/digital-slr-camera/ranking_0049/
But I'm curious, how did you get the 8.59%? I don't see any sale numbers, just the positions.

[Clavius]

But it is getting bridged. That's the point. I'm not the only photographer on this board making a living with Pentax gear. It was partly because I had limited funds that I went Pentax. I literally would not be a pro now if it was not for Pentax. I priced Nikon gear. Casually looked at Canon just to compare but admittedly I'm not a Canon fan and wouldn't have gone Canon vs Nikon. I just could not afford it. For all the advantages Nikon can offer they were simply priced too high for my budget for me to be able to even consider a similar kit of theirs. I'm tooting Pentax's horn totally, but that's because I have reason to.

They gave me my dream job and I have managed to do it just fine with their gear. I don't really think Pentax is aiming for the pro market much anyway. I think they want the entry level consumer and the serious hobbyist. If they catch a few pros too, great, but I don't think they're trying to be Nikon or Canon, which has been a fortunate thing for me as it has actually made it possible for me to own their gear.

If I had 15K I still would not be wasting it on Nikon gear. I would be using it to build my business somehow but I would have still gone Pentax. It just made sense to me. Pentax gear is excellent. I can do almost anything with it except very high end sports photography maybe and it's considerably less than Canon or Nikon. It irritates me sometimes that people make this assumption that somehow Pentax is inferior somehow for working photographers because as one I just don't find it to be. Not really...

Yes, Pentax was known for above excellent value for money. In that respect, what do you expect from the new FF Pentax? Do you think it's going to competitively priced vs CaNikon offerings? I have my doubts about that.