[Mistral75]

KP and K-70 seemed to come straight out of nowhere for me. Nothing one minute, then a fully-fledged camera release ready to go.

(...)

K70:

- first mention of the camera on May 19th, 2016 (registration by the South-Korean Radio Research Agency)
- first set of specifications on June 6th (Digital Camera Info)
- first pictures on June 8th (Digital Camera Info)
- announcement on June 9th.

KP:

- first mention of the camera on January 11th, 2017 (registration by the Indonesian agency Postel)
- first specifications on January 23rd (Nokishita Camera)
- first pictures on January 24th (Nokishita Camera)
- first detailed specifications on January 25th (Nokishita Camera)
- announcement on January 26th.

Conclusion: watch the publications by the telecommunications agencies! .

[Winder]

The GFX50 was a shock to them, though; I don't think anyone predicted Fuji was going to bring their medium format camera in that cheap. They thought they had entry level 645 wrapped up, and now they do not. Methinks they are frantically working out what to do next. If Fuji aren't taking a terrific hidden loss on every unit sold, they will eat everybody's lunch eventually... but all this remains to be seen for sure.

Pentax needs to take all the advancements of the K-1 and implement them into the 645 line. They need to make it more compact and they either need to add IBIS or move to a full sized 645 sensor. Most of all they need glass that is updated.

It some times seem like the digital camera division is a side hobby for Ricoh. Tucked away in the "other" category.

[pathdoc]

@Mistral75 Yep - two-three weeks notice.

@Kunzite - The difference is whether there's enough volume to support that loss leader.

Generally speaking, the only earth-shaking big surprise Pentax could spring now is a sub-$10K 6x7. They have the advantage of a film heritage to build on and a relatively modern film body to act as a platform. The sensor would be a monster, though, and unless they chose a particularly low pixel pitch the file sizes would be horrendous.

OTOH the 6x7 format has never exactly been renowned for being called on to be a sports/action/wildlife platform, which would cancel out all of Pentax's perceived deficiencies at a stroke. Go big or go home!

[lytrytyr]

I think the problem they have at the moment is a complete lack of any mainstream camera for the average customer.

Looking at what Ricoh is offering, the smaller cameras are all distinctly niche (GR, Theta, WG) and the next step up is the K-70 with 18-135 kit lens.

So where's the K-S2 then?

Wasn't their "S" line meant for mainstream consumers?

[DDoram]

Sales are way down from last year. However, it is not clear if they actually lost money in the 1st quarter or not or broke even. Not a good sign and Ricoh is not giving hints at future directions so this along with recent negative news reports is likely bleeding sales. Who wants to buy into a camera system that is on shaky ground? I have the K1 and the lenses I need to will not be helping them in near future.

[biz-engineer]

Sales are way down from last year. However, it is not clear if they actually lost money in the 1st quarter or not or broke even.

Regardless of the aggregated financial figures found in the reports, I don't think their camera business made less money in the last year compared to the previous year. The camera business is just not visible in the reports. In the previous year, there was no Pentax K1 and not other new product to generate sales. In the last fiscal year, they sold the K1 and lenses, which is higher priced than previous apsc lines, so even with half the volume, they should recovered more profit from the K1 product line than they did with the apsc product lines in the previous years. A guess would be that the K1 generated revenues situated between the figures of the K5 and K3 platforms, with the K5 being considered as successful. What was detrimental to the Pentax brand is the last post on DPR regarding a second article from the Nikkei, without any response from Ricoh Imaging marcom, + added Sigma and Tamron no making new lenses for Pentax and + overall declining sales + scared people selling their Pentax gear, that's a lot going against the brand at the same moment.

[Kunzite]

@Kunzite - The difference is whether there's enough volume to support that loss leader.

Assuming it is a loss leader. I don't think that was the case for the Pentax 645 line.

[JPT]

So where's the K-S2 then?

Wasn't their "S" line meant for mainstream consumers?

In answer to your question, the K-S2 is gone from most stores now in Japan. You can still get it from some online stores. But even so, it was not much different to the K-70 - still a lot heavier than the smallest Canon and Nikon DSLRs, and much bigger than mirrorless. The last time Ricoh had a genuinely small K-mount body was the K-S1.

To continue my argument, there's a Japanese retail survey called BCN that published a yearly market share percentage for DSLR makers. It's mainly focused on the more consumer end of retail. Pentax is normally between 5 and 7 percent. What I found interesting was that Pentax tends to hit the 7% when they have a camera like the K-x, K-r or K-S1 on the market for the whole year. They tend to be at 5% when they don't. This is why I'm saying that not having a product like this in the last year could be the explanation for why their sales are so low. Maybe it's just a bad quarter of a quiet year.

The smaller, lighter, cheaper cameras are really important because they are the gateway into the brand for a lot of people. Canon understands this very well. I can totally see the path from being a beginner to being a serious pro with Canon. Some people have been saying Ricoh should just forget the low end, but in that case what would be the path to becoming a Pentax user? Perhaps users are expected to jump straight in with a camera like the K-3. Or perhaps they start with another brand and then after some years they have some kind of epiphany when they realize that they should move to Pentax for pixel shift or Astrotracer or something. It's not very convincing to me.

That's why I think having an attractive entry level camera is important for every brand. The K-70 is a great value camera, but its selling points are quite esoteric (IBIS rather than OIS, weather sealing, pentaprism vs. pentamirror, pixel shift, dual control dials and so on). It doesn't address what a lot of users want, which is a smaller total package, simple operation that doesn't baffle them with too many acronyms, and probably better integration with smartphones.

[monochrome]

The smartphone integration is very important for emerging discretionary purchase consumers.

[Gedeon]

I'm not surprised that Pentax is not doing well financially. I bought my K1 over a year ago and they have introduced NO new lens since then. I got tired of waiting and have spend substantial money on third party lens(Zeiss). I'd bet I'm not the only one!

Same way...😑
Tired to wait, i'm looking for other brand now

[Kunzite]

The last time Ricoh had a genuinely small K-mount body was the K-S1.

Yeah, and people started complaining about LEDs and whatever.

[Pål Jensen]

The figures are unfortunate but they are what they are: between Q1 2017/03 (April-June 2016) and Q1 2018/03 (April-June 2017), the sales of the 'Smart Vision' subdivision (i.e. digital and industrial cameras) went from ¥7.8bn ($72m / €64m) to ¥4.3bn ($39m / €35m) i.e. minus 45 per cent. and Ricoh are attributing this plunge to digital cameras.

Isn't industrial cameras under industrial products? It seems so in the figure. I'm pretty sure that industrial cameras and optics are designed by the same people and build in the same factories as the DSLR stuff. Seems there has been a growth in industrial optical/digital. It seems like a shift of priorities; away from consumer camera towards high-end (explaining the coming lenses, AP and the K-1, and drop in sales volume) and more industrial stuff. Pretty much what they have been saying.....

[Mistral75]

Isn't industrial cameras under industrial products? It seems so in the figure. I'm pretty sure that industrial cameras and optics are designed by the same people and build in the same factories as the DSLR stuff. (...)

Industrial cameras (machine vision cameras and rugged compact cameras) were indeed under <Industrial Products> but Ricoh have changed their way of presenting their various businesses.

Formerly we had:

<Imaging & Solutions>

Office Imaging
Production Printing
Network System Solutions

<Industrial Products>
<Other>

Now we have:

<Office Printing>
<Office Service>
<Commercial Printing>
<Industrial Printing>
<Thermal Media>
<Other>

To make things even more complicated, the new <Other> is much bigger than the former one and there is a subdivision called 'Other' within the <Other> business segment!

The new <Other> is subdivided into:

'Industrial Products' (optical equipment, electronic components, semiconductor devices)
'Smart Vision' (digital and industrial cameras) and
'Other' (finance business in Japan, 3D printing, environment and healthcare)

The rugged compact cameras joined Ricoh Imaging sometimes during the second half of last fiscal year, as evidenced by Ricoh website:

Digital Cameras | Industrial Products | Ricoh

The same website still considers industrial cameras (i.e. machine vision cameras) as being part of the former <Industrial Products> business segment:

FA Camera/Lens | Industrial Products | Ricoh

(...) It seems like a shift of priorities; away from consumer camera towards high-end (explaining the coming lenses, KP and the K-1, and drop in sales volume) and more industrial stuff. Pretty much what they have been saying.....

Exactly, apart from Theta which is still very much consumer-oriented with not so many business applications (the R Development Kit being apparently a tentative to develop them).

[loveisageless]

KP and K-70 seemed to come straight out of nowhere for me. Nothing one minute, then a fully-fledged camera release ready to go.

They're working on something; I'm sure of it. And it will be big. But if they release now, they release into the storms of publicity surrounding the A9, Nikon D850, etc. etc., and the message gets lost.

The GFX50 was a shock to them, though; I don't think anyone predicted Fuji was going to bring their medium format camera in that cheap. They thought they had entry level 645 wrapped up, and now they do not. Methinks they are frantically working out what to do next. If Fuji aren't taking a terrific hidden loss on every unit sold, they will eat everybody's lunch eventually... but all this remains to be seen for sure.

Fuji knocked it out of the park with the GFX50. Not only is the body DSLR hand holdable, the lenses released to date have been stellar. They will be able to weather the body being a loss leader (if indeed it is one) because the lenses are flying off the shelves. Due to arthritis in my hands I could not handle the 645Z and regretfully had to sell it. Found a very good deal on a used GFX50. I would have rather bought another digital Pentax MF camera though had one existed.

[Pål Jensen]

They need a new form factor for the 645. It doesn't have to be much larger than the K-1. About 1.5cm deeper mirrorbox and a larger prism.
You can add the mirrorbox and prism to the Fuji and see how a Pentax 645 DSLR might look.