[Parallax]

Well, this thread sure brought the trolls out from under their bridges.

[JPT]

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

BCN?????? | ??????????No1???????? BCN AWARD

Included are Amazon and Rakuten and some large electronics retailers like Bic Camera. It's notable that some of the stores which are more popular with enthusiasts are not in there, like Yodobashi, Fujiya and Map Camera. Since Pentax is more of an enthusiast brand, I wouldn't expect it to do well on BCN. In fact Fujifilm always does terribly in BCN data as well. If you want to see an illustration of how different types of stores attract different groups of customers, compare the current BCN Ranking to the current Kakaku.com ranking.

BCN: ????????????????BCN?????????
Kakaku.com: http://kakaku.com/camera/digital-slr-camera/ranking_0049/

When comparing data year to year, we would need to know which retailers were participating in those years. I suspect that some of the big retailers, like Amazon or Rakuten, have joined in the last few years and shifted the balance towards Canon and Nikon.

If Ricoh had really had such a complete collapse in their Japan sales, it would show up in their financial reports, but I don't think that has happened. There is no cause for alarm here.

[jeff knight]

It's surprising to see Pentax dropping to close to half the share that they had in 2012. It's true that 2011/2012/most of 2013 were boring years product-wise, but I still would have expected an improvement in the home market given Ricoh's involvement. Perhaps we'll see some real results by the end of this year.

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.

I sincerely hope you're right...but Pentax is still losing ground at a crucial point. No one has the guts to point out the dubiousness of a debut of a hollow 3D printed plastic FF prototype at this particular time. I'm personally grateful, but we have been so starved for FF for so long no one wants to jinx it by stating the obvious. Absolutely the weirdest debut of a Pentax camera ever. Marshal McLuhan time.

[THoog]

I am not sure also, but Pentax builds bodies in the Philippines and all but the * line of lenses are in Vietnam so the Earthquake/Tsunami did not affect production. But as you said, there were no new models out so not really sure what was the reason behind additional sales, perhaps the Q?

I wasn't even thinking about production, I was thinking about the impact of the earthquake on DSLR sales in Japan (which is what BCN is ranking, if I read it right). Maybe with the impact on the economy, there were less frivolous camera purchases, which hit Canikon more than Pentax. Or maybe people bought more K-5s because weather sealing and build quality became very strong selling points, post-earthquake.

[Mistral75]

Are you sure those numbers are all about digital cameras? I know what's written in those financial reports, I've read them myself (that brief footnote) - but Other also includes leasing and logistics, which appears to be very Japanese-centric businesses.
Assuming an average value of 44,000 Yen for a body and 22,500 Yen for a lens and assuming they would sell on average 1.5 lenses for a body (I know, lots of assumptions), 75,7 billions yen correspond roughly to 1 million digital cameras sold. In other words, over 7% of the ILC market.
Even factoring out the compacts, as they barely have few models that percentage would not fall too much. But I think their actual market share is lower, and those numbers include sales other than digital cameras.

Here's another approach; BCNRanking estimated a market share of 4.5% for DSLRs, and ~8.7% for MILCs. That means ~48,500 DSLRs (~2.5 billion Yen) and ~63,000 MILCs (~2.5 billion Yen) with a total average value of ~5 billion Yen.
1.5 lens sold on average for each means ~150,000 lenses, with a total value of 3,375 billion yen.
In total - under 9 billion Yen. Sure, there must be other sources but it's a far cry from the 75.7 billion Yen for the entire Others.

P.S. It's late and I'm tired, so you might want to double check my calculations...

Taking into account average price per unit and average number of lenses per body from CIPA figures, otherwise same assumptions as yours.

DSLRs: 468,206,857,000 JPY ÷ 10,549,890 units = 44,380 JPY per unit (you took 44,000)

MILCs: 137,116,746,000 JPY ÷ 3,289,278 units = 41,686 JPY per unit but the average price of a MILC (24x36, APS-C, µ4/3, 1" and 1/1.7") is much more than that of a Q; let's assume 30,000 JPY for a Q (you took 40,000)

Lenses: 223,495,664,000 JPY ÷ 17,067,842 units = 13,095 JPY per unit; again, let's retain this price for DSLR lenses and discount it for Q lenses and retain 9,000 JPY

Average number of lenses per unit: 22,927,892 lenses ÷ 13,839,168 bodies = 1.66 lens per body (you took 1.5)

48,690 DSLRs x 44,380 JPY per unit = 2.16 bn JPY

724,775 MILCs shipped to Japan x 8.7% market share = 63,055 Qs; 63,055 Qs x 30,000 JPY per unit = 1.89 bn JPY

48,690 DSLRs + 63,055 Qs x 1.66 lens per body = 80,667 K-mount lenses + 104,466 Q-mount lenses

80,667 K-mount lenses x 13,095 JPY per unit = 1.06 bn JPY

104,466 Q-mount lenses x 9,000 JPY per unit = 0,94 bn JPY

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.

[osv]

the [total] Growth is equal of 74,7% of 2013 volume meaning volume is down 25,3 % . Same thing applied to Mirrorless

that number is the total digital market, which includes p&s cameras, it's not just slr & non-reflex... that's why the numbers don't add up.

all that total number tells us is that all camera sales in japan were trending down worse overall than our slr & non-reflex numbers were... but slr sales were affected by a higher percentage than mirrorless sales, in that down market.

1,082,010 dslr units vs. 724,775 mirrorless units says it all... mirrorless went from zero percentage to huge percentage in just a few short years, it is clearly taking over in japan, dslr is a dying platform.

so this thread that claims that pentax is #3 is absolutely hilarious it could only be #3 out of 1,082,010 dslr units, a category that canikon dominates.

the pentax q has a small portion of the 724,775 mirrorless cameras sold, probably more than offset by the missing samsung mirrorless data.

the bcn data has more holes in it than a piece of swiss cheese.

[JimmyDranox]

I sincerely hope you're right...but Pentax is still losing ground at a crucial point. No one has the guts to point out the dubiousness of a debut of a hollow 3D printed plastic FF prototype at this particular time. I'm personally grateful, but we have been so starved for FF for so long no one wants to jinx it by stating the obvious. Absolutely the weirdest debut of a Pentax camera ever. Marshal McLuhan time.

Do you really think that this ''lump of plastic'' is the present state of Pentax FF?

I bet that today, they have many functional prototypes, already fully tested, and they are moving to assembly the production line, and in 3-4 month, when they will give us details, they will start the production.

Everything we see today is made to test the market, to know how much pieces they will make in the first production run, and to fix the price.

[Blue]

If you're very quiet, and listen very carefully, you can hear the sound a few people's heads exploding.

Especially Sony and Oly people!

[Blue]

Well, this thread sure brought the trolls out from under their bridges.

Someone has to preach the demise of Pentax since salesmen from Wolf Camera aren't around to do it.

[Uluru]

It's surprising to see Pentax dropping to close to half the share that they had in 2012. It's true that 2011/2012/most of 2013 were boring years product-wise, but I still would have expected an improvement in the home market given Ricoh's involvement. Perhaps we'll see some real results by the end of this year.
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.

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.

Now they are at 4.5%. There is no way on Earth that without enormously increased marketing money (which must cause short term profit loss in 2015-16) and serious technological investment (which will again cause short term profit loss) they can regain 7.5% ever again. But if Ricoh wants to show profitability at all cost, their market share will shrink further. At a slower pace, though, but the loss is still irretrievable.

---------- Post added 02-22-2015 at 03:39 PM ----------

Everything we see today is made to test the market, to know how much pieces they will make in the first production run, and to fix the price.

Crowd sourcing, to finalise design.
I believe they now fully understand they cannot afford, at any cost, any new K-01 or K-S1 episode happening ever again, and certainly not with FF. It is their last straw.

[JimmyDranox]

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, 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.

Now they are at 4.5%. There is no way on Earth that without enormously increased marketing money (which must cause short term profit loss in 2015-16) they can regain 7.5% ever again.

I'm agree with you, but I think that we can ad some more causes to that abrupt shrinkage.

One, and in my opinion was that long period, from middle of 2012, when they have launched ''new'' cameras, in form of old K-5 renamed K-50 and K-500, until October of 2013, when they have launched K-3. No lenses, no future plans announced, nothing. Instead, they change the name of the company, sending more disturbing signals in the market.

I can tell you frankly, that, beside I always like Pentax, for more than 30 years, (if you ask me, I don't know why), if it was to buy my first DSLR camera in 2013, I would never buy Pentax, Because nobody knows what's gonna happen with them.

I've write a lot of post about the necessity for Ricoh to came with a real plan for the future, in the last 2 years. Now, the situations is better. But is a long way to go to conquer the spaces that was lost, not to talk about growing further.

And I think that's because the Ricoh leadership didn't understand at the right time, that a consumer market is totally different than a business market.

[Uluru]

..
One, and in may opinion was taht long period, from middle of 2012, when they have launched ''new''cameras, in form of old K-5 renamed K-50 and K-500, until October of 2013, when they have launched K-3. no lenses, no future plans announced, nothing. Instead, they change the name of company, sending more disturbing signals in the market.
I can tell you frankly,that, deside I always like Pentax, more than 30 years, (if you ask me Idon't know why), If it was to buy my first camera in 2013, I would never buy Pentax, Because nobody knows what's gonna happen with them.
I've write a lot of post about the necessity for Ricoh to came with a real plan for the future, in the last 2 years. Now, the situations is better. But is a long way to go to conquer the spaces that was lost, not to talk about growing further.

You are right about that. Rebranding was a really badly orchestrated and a waste of time. It really did not produce anything positive but introduced FUD.
They have managed to scare people, and we know that today: they have returned green rings on lenses, kept gold rings, and removed 'Ricoh' from cameras, and are willing to talk the FF quite openly. It took them 3 years to circle around and lose customers, but they learned a few things too.
Market share is now lost, but they need to think straight, deliver on money by investing real money into real features — not cheap rebranding exercises.

[PentaxJax]

Well shares in Pentax Ricoh have gone up 2 points over night......So I look up my old folders from when shares were down. OMFG Those pictures I took are now stunning I was about to delete them but now surely they are worth so much more....Sarc off


Why does it make so big a difference??? Ricoh are bringing to us a FF camera. They have announced new cameras, new lenses & new flashes. Does this mean they are worried about one market share announcement?
Having bought a Pentax camera and several lenses, I can assure you I did so based on the feel and quality of the item I hold in my hand, not based on some facebook like ratio.
YMMV
Oh and all those running to Canikon....What lenses are you desperate to rid yourselves of????

[JimmyDranox]

If they want to grow, and I thing they want,, they must learn the Canon lessons. R&D is expensive, but if you spread it on more products then one, is not so much. And in this way, they can fulfill the needs of many consumers. Someone wants more video, another more pixels, another more low light performance, other more connectivity. You can spread it. The more camera you built from a standard project, more costumers will be satisfied. More cameras means more presence in the news. More public exposure.

Ricoh can do this with K-3. But they didn't think in this way, and they loose a n opportunity.

[Rondec]

Have you all seen the things that Ricoh is bringing to market now?

Last year, clearly they spent a large number of resources on the 645z. Looks to me like it was worth it. While sales aren't high in absolute numbers, the profit made on each camera body is significantly more than what is generated off of say K3 sales, or K50 sales.

They have released the K-S1, K-S2 and announced a full frame camera. They have released three new lenses already this year and will probably have a few more by the end of the year for release with the full frame camera. To me, it is clear that they have a plan and that they are gradually bringing it to fruition.

Hoya didn't give Pentax any R and D money to work with and things really stagnated. At this point, though, it is clear that Ricoh is working on a lot of things and I am excited about new products coming out. To say that it is more of the same is silly.