[mee]

Recently I watched a recycling division of a large paper company spend £500k on a site only to close it weeks later.

It gave work to employees who otherwise would be wondering about their own futures??

Well.. that's not comforting!!

[jddwoods]

Seems like speculation. The core business has tanked in the past year, so Ricoh will have to look to cut costs. How exactly they'll do it remains to be seen. The recent show at CP+ certainly painted a different picture of most of the camera division.

When you say core business tanked do you mean Pentax or all of Ricoh? In my large company office there is word going around they are cutting back on their copier sales and support We have all new Ricoh copiers.

[reh321]

When you say core business tanked do you mean Pentax or all of Ricoh? In my large company office there is word going around they are cutting back on their copier sales and support We have all new Ricoh copiers.

The article specifically says

Ricoh will also rethink the sales strategy for its mainstay office equipment business, which suffers from slowing growth, while overhauling noncore operations such as cameras and semiconductors.

[Topsy]

When you say core business tanked do you mean Pentax or all of Ricoh? In my large company office there is word going around they are cutting back on their copier sales and support We have all new Ricoh copiers.

If I remember right Ricoh tanked a bit (similarly to others in that industry?) and Pentax was up a bit..

I'm pretty sure that we've got more serious photographers running around with a Pentax now than ever since Digial took over..

But what do I know? I'm a bad customer anyways, I bought two bodies and countless lenses off which they did not make any profit whatsoever.

[monochrome]

This article is partly speculative.
and partly the sort of thing that everyone except management anticipates from the moment a merger is announced

Ricoh has a history of buying nearly defunct office equipment brands from larger conglomerates:

Savin, Gestetner, Lanier, Rex-Rotary, Monroe, Nashuatec, IKON and most recently IBM Printing Systems Division / Infoprint Solutions Company. Although the Monroe brand was discontinued, products continue to be marketed worldwide under the remaining brand names. In 2006, Ricoh acquired the European operations of Danka for $210 million. These operations continue as a stand-alone business unit, under the Infotec brand.

A few years ago Ricoh consolidated operations and reduced global workforce by 10,000 people across these brands, but I don't recall they did much in America (IKON). IBM Printing System overlaps extensively with (IKON) the Ricoh channel. Sadly, the Central US Distributor was awarded Ricoh's outstanding performance awards for 2015/2016, but I understand they will disappear into the IBM operation.

Likewise Pentax was a nearly defunct brand. The scale of cameras relative to office equipment is such that I don't think what they decide matters much either way. In the end the vacant real estate (for manufacturing other stuff) might be the only valuable asset.

[pakinjapan]

This is a copy from my japanese (stock) investor's news update. sorry, I can not give you the url because it won't work anyway if you don't have a user / pass. Use google translate and you will see they mention about Ricoh's looses related to digital camera which they have to revise the net income forecast from 10 billion yen to 2 billion yen. This doesn't tell what they will do with Pentax. It is just another add on information.

１１日に通期の連結業績予想の下方修正を発表し、これを嫌気している。２０１７年３月期の業績予想の下方修正は４回目。デジタルカメラ事業に関連する固定資産で減損損失を計上する。純利益予想は前回の１００億円から２０億円（前期６２９億円）に見直した。

Edit:
for the sake of news source's reference, Reuters japan has a similar update here.

[monochrome]

This is a copy from my japanese (stock) investor's news update. sorry, I can not give you the url because it won't work anyway if you don't have a user / pass. Use google translate and you will see they mention about Ricoh's looses related to digital camera which they have to revise the net income forecast from 10 billion yen to 2 billion yen. This doesn't tell what they will do with Pentax. It is just another add on information.

So they're changing a projected final profit 10 Billion Yen to a lower projected final profit of 2 Billion Yen entirely because cameras unexpectedly lost 8 Billion Yen operating between December 31 and March 31?

They wrote down the value of 8 Billion Yen disused Plant.

"We record impairment loss on fixed assets related to digital camera business." which sounds like the excess factory capacity they plan to make automotive cameras in. *

* they only paid 10 Billion Yen for all of Pentax. Are these fixed assets Ricoh compact camera assets?

---

Last edited by monochrome; 04-11-2017 at 06:55 PM.

[alamo5000]

"Ricoh is shrinking its money-losing camera business to concentrate resources on commercial applications as smartphones continue to crowd out long-established names in photography.

The Japanese company will radically review a production and manufacturing strategy centered on cameras for the retail market, including such brands as Pentax and GR. Options include withdrawing from this segment altogether."

That's a quote from the English version.

Not including the medium format I counted six different SLR cameras on their US site. If you look at their global site it has this listed:

Products | RICOH IMAGING

Then you have the Q.

In addition to that you have 5 additional 'point and shoot' type cameras. That does not include the Theta.

All together I see over a dozen different cameras in their current line up.

While I don't know the numbers of everything but I would venture to guess that all those point and shoot types are definitely on the chopping block. I could easily see Pentax brand being consolidated more into the 'professional', 'serious photographer', and 'the hobbyist' categories and everything else be gone.

From everything I read about the K-1 and the launch there it 'more than exceeded' expectations and all that. If you go back and look at the interviews posted here on the forum they said that about the K-1 and the 645z. The Z really shook up the camera world. I highly doubt that they are losing money on those two lines.

That said the cel phone camera is essentially in direct competition with all those point and shoot models and even the Q if you really think about it. Billions of people walk around with a camera in their hands everyday.

That said for the serious photographer a phone isn't the same thing. Without numbers in front of me it would be impossible to say much. That said I would think the K mount and medium format should be safe but who knows.

[shaolen]

aww man I really wanted that macro lens to cone for the Q. Well everyone grab a K-1 and some good lenses and enjoy them. Pentax has everything for my needs anyway

[normhead]

Pentax is doomed.

[alamo5000]

Pentax is doomed.

I don't think they are doomed but I do think a consolidation is in order. They are currently producing more than a dozen different cameras with about half of them in the point and shoot category.

[mikeSF]

That's it, we're doomed.

[Adam]

When you say core business tanked do you mean Pentax or all of Ricoh? In my large company office there is word going around they are cutting back on their copier sales and support We have all new Ricoh copiers.

Core business = copiers, so Ricoh proper.

[farhagh]

According to today's Nikkei, Japan's largest business newspaper, Ricoh is going to scale back camera business. It could get out of consumer camera business completely.

??????????????????????????????? (in Japanese)

Sad news...

Mmmmm, I do not see any cameras listed in marketplace. Don't the people take news serious? Come on guys...

[MarkJerling]

Pentax is doomed.

I'll give you a dollar for your K-1?