[JPT]

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Ricoh has shown in past events that they're not that interested in showing Pentax stuff in CES. Maybe they get to showcase printers here

This might be true, but in he past they have launched a few products for CES, like the MX-1 and some other compacts. It's interesting that almost all the rumouring in the past year has been about the full frame camera and its associated lenses, but there are other products that are either due or overdue for renewal, and that might happen at CES.

- MX-1 never got a successor. I feel it would be sensible for Ricoh to make a 1 inch zoom model along the lines of their old GX100/200 cameras.
- Pentax Q has not received it's annual update this year. No lenses have materialised. What's going on there?
- The XG superzoom is now discontinued without a replacement.
- The K-S1 and K-50 have been on the market for a long time now. We might see a new low end K-mount camera. Possibly even the APS-C wide zoom on the roadmap.
- 645 lenses are also due on the roadmap. Also, I've noticed that a lot of the FA 645 lenses seem to be in low supply in Japan now, so perhaps more of them will get the HD treatment soon. CES doesn't seem the best place to showcase 645 stuff though.
- And surely we can never have enough crappy updates to the WG series

I also think they'll try to emphasise the Theta S at the show, because it's a gadget focused show and everything related to smartphones will be in the spotlight.

[jimr-pdx]

Well, the CP+ is just a month and half later. They have Jack Daniels there

If' Jack is one of their shootin' pros, I'm in!

[ogl]

This might be true, but in he past they have launched a few products for CES, like the MX-1 and some other compacts. It's interesting that almost all the rumouring in the past year has been about the full frame camera and its associated lenses, but there are other products that are either due or overdue for renewal, and that might happen at CES.

- MX-1 never got a successor. I feel it would be sensible for Ricoh to make a 1 inch zoom model along the lines of their old GX100/200 cameras.
- Pentax Q has not received it's annual update this year. No lenses have materialised. What's going on there?
- The XG superzoom is now discontinued without a replacement.
- The K-S1 and K-50 have been on the market for a long time now. We might see a new low end K-mount camera. Possibly even the APS-C wide zoom on the roadmap..

I don't see any prospects with P&S cameras with small sensors for Ricoh. Waste of money and resources.
As for Q - it would be interesting with bigger sensor - 1".
The rest cameras have no any popularity at all. Tiny sales and tiny market. IMO

WG series has sense and it's all. But WG should be seriously upgraded.

[Zygonyx]

An up-grade with really serious waterproofing (i lost consecutively WG-3 and WG-4 by watering...) and 1" sensor would have quite sense...

[RonHendriks1966]

Since it is a gadget show, I expect only theta (maybe something New for this) and a new action camera.

[beholder3]

They need to buy good selfie compacts in that segment.

Casio is a whopping +50% more profitable than the sinking Nikon ship (customers running away in droves each year) by selling their TR selfie compacts at higher prices than Nikon (see: New Casio Exilim EX TR70 Self Portrait Digital Camera White TR 70 | eBay) can get for a D7200 and higher than A7 or twice that of an E-M5. Everybody can imagine what the margins for Casio are.

That's a clear signal on what many customer's value and where the money is.
Casio grows where Nikon fails year by year.

It's not only the smartphones which are eating the camera makers cake, it's also specialized customer centric point and shoots.

To follow their own inventions they just need to expand on the Theta.

[Zygonyx]

... and find some pretty marketing stars showing off with it...

[bladerunner6]

Alternatively, it's a way of showing you ARE afraid of the Chinese competition... I mean, look at the size of the Samsung stand, and Huawei's eating their lunch in the Android phone market. Whistling in the dark, we used to call it.

Other brands may be gaining market share, but it is by selling products at a loss.

Apple now inhaling 94 percent of global smartphone profits, selling just 14.5 percent of total volumes

Basically, Apple makes the overwhelming percentage of profit selling smartphones, with Samsung a distant second and most other vendors losing money.

Gaining market share while losing money is not the most sustainable business model.

[dansamy]

Samsung makes a good smartphone. I just prefer a more vanilla Android experience. I'm not fond of Samsung's TouchWiz. If I have to pick a manufacturer's GUI for Android, I prefer HTC's Sense. MotoBlur and TouchWiz are clunkier & unfriendly. This is one of the reasons I bought the OnePlus One at its release.

[Simen1]

Ricoh imaging should talk to their neigbouring booth, Optoma, and try to co-develop a 360-360 projector for Theta.

[RobA_Oz]

Other brands may be gaining market share, but it is by selling products at a loss.

Apple now inhaling 94 percent of global smartphone profits, selling just 14.5 percent of total volumes

Basically, Apple makes the overwhelming percentage of profit selling smartphones, with Samsung a distant second and most other vendors losing money.

Gaining market share while losing money is not the most sustainable business model.

Samsung is losing share and profitability at the premium end of the global market to Apple, and at the cheap end to Huawei in the Asian markets. Huawei is a very big communications company that is just entering Western phone markets, and they're also attacking the premium end, so they'll be prepared to stand a loss while they do so.

Put it another way: booth size at CES and the like can be a reflection of fear, as much as status.

Samsung makes a good smartphone. I just prefer a more vanilla Android experience. I'm not fond of Samsung's TouchWiz. If I have to pick a manufacturer's GUI for Android, I prefer HTC's Sense. MotoBlur and TouchWiz are clunkier & unfriendly. This is one of the reasons I bought the OnePlus One at its release.

I couldn't find an HTC booth in the list. They must be doomed, even more than Pentax.

[bladerunner6]

Samsung is losing share and profitability at the premium end of the global market to Apple, and at the cheap end to Huawei in the Asian markets. Huawei is a very big communications company that is just entering Western phone markets, and they're also attacking the premium end, so they'll be prepared to stand a loss while they do so.

Put it another way: booth size at CES and the like can be a reflection of fear, as much as status.



I couldn't find an HTC booth in the list. They must be doomed, even more than Pentax.

I will certainly agree that Samsung is facing greater competition, but they still make more profit in a quarter than Huawei makes in a year.

Samsung confirms its first profit growth since the Galaxy S4 | The Verge

China's Huawei Technologies 2014 profit grows 33 percent | Reuters

And as noted, Huawei is missing smartphone targets.

The death of Samsung is greatly exaggerated, although I would always advise a company to watch the competition.

[RobA_Oz]

Hard to credit that this all started with a note about the size of the Ricoh stand at CES…

[Zygonyx]

Alas, that is the dire perspective for mass photography.... and unfortunately (as colaterals) even more than that.

[reh321]

Other brands may be gaining market share, but it is by selling products at a loss.

Apple now inhaling 94 percent of global smartphone profits, selling just 14.5 percent of total volumes

Basically, Apple makes the overwhelming percentage of profit selling smartphones, with Samsung a distant second and most other vendors losing money.

Gaining market share while losing money is not the most sustainable business model.

This might be true, but in he past they have launched a few products for CES, like the MX-1 and some other compacts. It's interesting that almost all the rumouring in the past year has been about the full frame camera and its associated lenses, but there are other products that are either due or overdue for renewal, and that might happen at CES.

- MX-1 never got a successor. I feel it would be sensible for Ricoh to make a 1 inch zoom model along the lines of their old GX100/200 cameras.
- Pentax Q has not received it's annual update this year. No lenses have materialized. What's going on there?
- The XG superzoom is now discontinued without a replacement.
- The K-S1 and K-50 have been on the market for a long time now. We might see a new low end K-mount camera. Possibly even the APS-C wide zoom on the roadmap.
- 645 lenses are also due on the roadmap. Also, I've noticed that a lot of the FA 645 lenses seem to be in low supply in Japan now, so perhaps more of them will get the HD treatment soon. CES doesn't seem the best place to showcase 645 stuff though.
- And surely we can never have enough crappy updates to the WG series

I also think they'll try to emphasize the Theta S at the show, because it's a gadget focused show and everything related to smartphones will be in the spotlight.

As I said in a thread over in the "Q" area, I believe Ricoh would be wasting resources poured into a Q-S2 unless they put an EVF on it, because (as noted above) Apple is running over every one in that general market segment, and at the rate cell phone cameras are progressing, a Q would need something truly different in order to compete with it.

I would be extremely surprised if Ricoh puts resources into a "super zoom" camera; Nikon seems to have a real winner in the P900, and even Canon seems to have trouble competing with them (I'm still not clear on what the issues are with the SX-60, but it seems to have trouble even competing with discounted SX-50's). As I've been saying for some time now, the way for Pentax to compete with ":super zoom" cameras would be for them to release a "birding" package for the Q; that would need a 50-300 native Q lens, but in order to be competitively even with the P900 and SX-60, it would also need an EVF. I'm guessing that it would need to be more than even with the P900 and SX-60, so the whole package would probably also need to be WR (which would also make the Q-S2 more competitive with iPhones).

Frankly, the FF project seems to have sucked up all of Ricoh's camera engineering resources, so I don't really expect any of this stuff to happen.