[patarok]

I absolutely disagree.... for some reasons: IF!!! If Pentax is just a Yakuza department... then they would really know how to bribe people like Canon and Nikon do...
At every corner you would see a Pentax. Designated american TV crime series that use color filters in about 40% of their scenes , would show people that photograph the crime scenes exclusively with Pentax-Equipment.
And you would read reviews in photo-magazines, where exactly one and the same glass from SIGMA would have a totally bad de-facto resolution on NIKON DSLRs but mounted on PENTAX DSLR -abracadabra- wow... about twice the resolution as on the NIKON body....(lets keep in mind that SIGMA only has to adjust the positioning of the whole optical elements by 1.04mm to 46.5mm)
You'll ask: "Why should that be?" ... I guess because if one "invests" his money... in a company, he wants the company to be successful, sooner or later... And please don't believe crime lords only invest in "floating" companies... the more you see through, you want to close your eyes... really. believe me.

sincerely now:
Ricoh would only have to do more and better advertising... Let alone that spot for the "Theta S" -->

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

is an epic fail, when it comes to the musical accompaniment.... MEGAFAIL at least from that point on where the synthie sound starts... and it really gets worse, when you see those people hanging around in the bar, a very strange piano sounds thru.. That would work for japanese people... But since the protagonists in this spot are all gaijin, i take a good guess and say, this should be the spot for the international market... Catastrophe... i would accept that music when i want to watch a stunning awesome anime movie... But you would kill european and american customers with this music... no way this spot with this music will lead to any success.. The spot itself doesn't look bad at all, but it could use less "cuts" and a bit more cool and calm.

The company has real cool products starting with those WG cameras to the, GR, the MX-1, K-5 series, K-3 series, and the K-50 really may be the best bang for the buck at the moment on the whole DSLR sector...(not to beat), 645 is an outstanding system....

What it needs now to gain real success: ADVERTISING, PRODUCT PLACEMENT, and if RICOH likes it or not, they will have to rebrand their imaging department back to PENTAX(with RICOH subtitle) ... PENTAX was a really big player in the photo business... around the 70ties for instance... there are so many pentax SLRs floating around in EUROPE and the other western world. it was THE name in photography business(and also for optical medical equipment) and since they succeeded real BIG with the Spotmatic and the LX it is an internationally well known brand. Whereas i have to admit i never really knew much about Ricoh in the photo-biz. and i think it never had a noticeable marketshare...
It just can't be that the Idea/brand/company that produced the FIRST SLR ON THE JAPANESE MARKET - P E N T A X !!!! looses ground now... (Nikon was still playing around with Rangefinder tech, and i dunno when Canon realized that SLRs will be the success)
And the only reason that you don't see the Pentax brand around is not only that the marketshare shrunk. It is because we are all brainwashed. And RICOH will also have to turn up with a huge Brainwash-Machinery to succeed. It will take more attempts like in Brian DePalmas "Femme Fatale"... To succeed and gain back marketshare.... And once the Full-Frame DSLR is out and production settles... They should concentrate on bringing more accessories for the PENTAX DSLRs like silicone hulls(the kids love it like candy ).... furthermore they will have to do something about 3rd party support - Jinbei-Flashes... HSS and P-TTL to studio-flashes... a 1st Party wireless flashing(P-TTL over Radio) solution (or outsourced to cactus)

My recipe for GAIN BACK P E R C E P T I O N TO THE PENTAX BRANDNAME:

We'll need:
1 romantic movie where one of the newNsexy beaus waves around with a pentax DSLR...
2-3 action or crime movies where on will see the PENTAX brand.

several famous, surfers, skaters, divers, explorers and chefs
1 international news agency
10-20 "friends" working at photo magazines and photo and photo equipment related websites

a pot of gold for "promotional fees"

at least one television series that is particularly promising in europe and UK countries...
and one booming Crime-series in the US.

Now that we have all ingredients, we will need to buy those ingredients fresh from the market every year and concentrate on events to gain the attention of the youth.
So then will need surfers, skaters, divers and explorers with WG equipment. We stir that up with professional WG-cases for DSLRs and equip for instance military photographers with this kit. (and godd4mn yes, there has to be a hollywood movie also, where on can see the new version of Tom Hanks using this equipment)
Let settle a little and set aside.

Than we take our news agency and batter it for a while until we have settled a contract where we support their photographers with equipment...therefore you will accidentally see explicitly 4-5 photographers using PENTAX gear when TV reports about political or other press conferences...

et cetera, et cetera...

I'll take that assumption of yours and turn it upside down. And say:
Maybe Ricoh-Imaging is the last of the large camera producers, where no crime money gets invested... Could be some PENTAX Philosophy to bank on rationality, fun and functionality of their products instead of bribery et cetera...

But i wish that they will come to the point where they have to accept that this "recipe" above maybe the only way things would work out right for Ricoh-Imaging/PENTAX and therefore the Planet K-MOUNT... and its inhabiters

pardon my english(no native tongue)

[monochrome]

Advertising widely is only financially effective if your goal is to sell a lot more product at a thinner margin. That isn't Ricoh's strategy. They seem to be profitable just doing what they are doing. IOW, If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[patarok]

i like yer style in writing and the most of your arguments in your posts. really. But this time you may be wrong as can be.
BTW i wont accept your opinion here as the truth, because i am pretty sure you are not involved in a level of command.

From what i saw, RICOHs booth at PhotoPlus did look a bit too sober for me. I liked the "Waterplay" and everything at Photokina, and still this is nothing compared to Japans CP+, where they do really freaky and somehow funny advertising campaigns...
IMHO they should appear/perform a bit more colorful and a bit tacky... Most western people would fall in love immediately when they would see freaky men and women in colorful, classy and a bit tacky kimonos behind the booth instead of the ordinary "long faced"(excuse the words) suspects.

I also liked Samsungs playground at photokina... It was just like WOW. Medi-eval clothed maidens ... a girl swinging back and forth on a swing set.
Food-Photography set-ups with pastell-candy.. AWESOME. i mean this was big!!!

I understand that most positive forces in the company now go into developing and finalizing the FF DSLR... But after the infrastructure to produce FF DSLRs is up and standing, i really await more effort in advertising.
I dont they have to be as aggressive as Nikon is in advertising. But they should make the Pentax and Ricoh brands really visible for a whole lot of people in the western world at least sporadically.


The only reason i insist on more advertising and would wish for some flash-advertising in big cities right now(and for product placements etc), is because i am a shareholder for a while now.
And that is the reason why I do have a voice on this(theoretically)and would really like to see something like growth and expansion.

It does not thin out margins, when you do it right. Yes it costs a bit of money. But believe me. RICOH Inc. as a whole should make 1.111.522.786,217 USD profit before income tax expenses by March 31, 2016 if you can believe the forecastings.

Please check out:
https://www.ricoh.com/IR/financial_data/financial_result/data/fy2016/p_1q.html
...and correct me if I am wrong.
They separate by comma and not by point like in the us. The numbers mostly stand for "millions of yen"

That is why I see a little reach of play here for advertising on the Imaging Department.

[monochrome]

There are only two possible conclusions:

(1). They're pretty smart business people and, having a good understanding of their market opportunity, are doing precisely what they should and can do given the circumstances and information at hand.
(2). They're a group of benighted, backward, old Japanese men without any clue of how to operate and grow an imaging equipment company.

In a world of scarce capital the parent company will allocate marginal investment capital to the next most profitable opportunity.

If (1). is true, then Cameras must not a better opportunity than allocating marginal investment capital elsewhere in the larger enterprise (which, according to one global investment bank, is actually the case).
If (2). is true then PentaxIsDoomed™

[RonHendriks1966]

New quarterly figures on October 30th.


I don't think investing in Pentax makes much sense. As long as they run two Brand name there isn't much to invest in. Renaming Pentax to Ricoh would make it possible to invest money in it. You build on the Ricoh Brand. I don't see that happening.

However beautiful the Samsung stand was at Photokina there are still no customers for their camera's in Europe.

[22codfish]

It's a possibility that all the delays in bringing the full-frame to market has hurt the sales volume of APS-C sensor size cameras. Sails are down because potential customers are waiting to make a choice. Even if the full-frame was now on the market, isn't it close to the time when the successor to the K3/K3II model should also be soon coming to market? Oh! What a wonderful problem; which camera to next purchase. Pentax fans have never been so fortunate having such a variety of good gear to choose from.

[patarok]

As long as they run two Brand name there isn't much to invest in.

I think you dont get the point. You dont invest in Pentax. You invest in RICOH. (if you do)
Because it is a very large profitable company...

A more profitable imaging department, just would make it much more profitable.
My good guess is that we are still in some phase of renovation now.

We could talk about this next year around the same time. Until then, i guess, there will be more to see.
Maybe TV ads with people running around with their DSLR in heavy rain and afterwards photographing at the canyon or on the top of a mountain with skiers tied on.
Or more ads at popular sports like soccer, and so on.
And I am pretty sure we may see another round of very fast optics for sports photography also.


Howsoever. Looking at the numbers overall, i would say one can be confident the guys in the management level of this company just know what they are doing.

[RonHendriks1966]

It's a possibility that all the delays in bringing the full-frame to market has hurt the sales volume of APS-C sensor size cameras. Sails are down because potential customers are waiting to make a choice. Even if the full-frame was now on the market, isn't it close to the time when the successor to the K3/K3II model should also be soon coming to market? Oh! What a wonderful problem; which camera to next purchase. Pentax fans have never been so fortunate having such a variety of good gear to choose from.

The next top tier aps-c could easily wait for Photokina in september 2016.

[monochrome]

I think you dont get the point. You dont invest in Pentax. You invest in RICOH. (if you do)
Because it is a very large profitable company...

A more profitable imaging department, just would make it much more profitable.
My good guess is that we are still in some phase of renovation now.

We could talk about this next year around the same time. Until then, i guess, there will be more to see.
Maybe TV ads with people running around with their DSLR in heavy rain and afterwards photographing at the canyon or on the top of a mountain with skiers tied on.
Or more ads at popular sports like soccer, and so on.
And I am pretty sure we may see another round of very fast optics for sports photography also.


Howsoever. Looking at the numbers overall, i would say one can be confident the guys in the management level of this company just know what they are doing.

To compete with Canon and Nikon (and Sony) in the high-volume, low-margin, big-marketing consumer model would cost Ricoh the parent company so much money that enterprise earnings would be negatively affected for six to eight quarters, per investment bankers.

Since Pentax is such a tiny part of Ricoh (it doesn't even have its own line on the Income Statement) such an investment would be foolish. Ergo, it won't happen.

Pentax advertises in Japan and does a little bit in EU. Hoya outright abandoned the NA market. They're trying to rebuild, but it is a slow, tough slog trying to convince dealers who were seriously harmed by Hoya and distruct the brand at the cellular level. It will take a long, long time to rebuild trust - and Pentax won't spend a great deal of capital here until there is some indication dealers will accept the brand again.

Don;t hold your breath - it won't happen tomorrow.

[goldenarrow]

That financial report makes no sense, because all important details are undisclosed and gain is supposedly derived when taking out of account certain "shuffling of things" no one understands but which will not be visible in the next report.
.
.
It isn't. K3 and some lenses in the US are selling at prices so low, at cost almost, or close to that price. While Canon 7DII sells at twice the price of the K-3, and Canon gains the market share Pentax lost. Now tell me, what is the genius of Canon that Ricoh cannot or is unwilling to understand, which allows Canon to sell even less 7DII bodies than Ricoh K3s, and get several times more profit out of them, gain market share and healthy marketing money which does not need accounting tricks to be presented?

I like this comment, for it points to two things that make sense to me.

1. Financial statements are only a generalization of the real world and we cannot know the whole facts unless one also knows the situation "on the ground", so to speak. Financial types throw numbers around, and then all of a sudden there is a problem (downturn) in business that "we could not see coming", but all the operations people knew it was coming because they were closer to the action in the real world.

This means that Ricoh cannot depend only upon numbers but also fine-tuning plans and implementation on a region by region basis. From what everyone has been describing (I have not read the numbers), Ricoh Imaging (aka, Cameras) is doing only slightly better than the big competition. Pentax is not-as-doomed as before! It also seems to mean that they need to take advantage of opportunity before the door shuts. If Nikon is in trouble, they should blatantly go after their customers.

2. This leads to answering the question from Uluru, what is the difference? There are probably many differences that Canon can gain share but seems to boil down to innovation + a large professional network who can afford cameras costing twice as much. Hard to compete against that, with a zillion lenses to choose from, a body for every type of photography, and a large service and repair network for busy professionals to depend on. Basically, those type of customers will be able to afford the cost of new expensive equipment. It is imperative that Ricoh FF camera gets introduced with a reliable and responsive dealer and repair network. They must go after the professional market or FF will be "doomed" to be a break-even niche product. The rest of the brand may limp along (and I do appreciate Ricoh saving the K-mount from extinction). But the opportunity to leverage K-mount with FF cameras (and APS-C cameras that can also use the K-mount) is something only Ricoh can execute, no one will do it for them. It is not just numbers, a network, innovation. It is one big orchestration that I hope Japan HQ is on top of. So far, it seems like they are (as far as their current plans are going).

Just thoughts....