[BigMackCam]

Those are the initial monthly production figures as reported by Ricoh Imaging when announcing the camera (当初月産数 = monthly production at the beginning).

Thank you. Those numbers are fascinating. It'll take me a while to digest them... It's tempting to draw quick conclusions from these numbers alone, but of course the release dates, camera market generally, other models available at any one time and a whole bunch of other factors must be taken into account.

I'll enjoy pondering these. Thanks again

[Winder]

That's an interesting question. Regarding the last part, all that matters is if it's selling well relative to Ricoh's sales forecasts, such that it's a profitable product during its projected life. It doesn't have to sell well relative to any other brand. So long as Ricoh achieves its sales and profit targets from that product, management is happy

That would depend on what Ricoh's goals are. Do they want to expand and grow market share? The K-1 and the 645Z both sold well above expectation which Ricoh seemed to be very happy about. How is the KP selling? K-1, K-1II, & 645Z are all at the end of their product cycles.... or they should be. If Ricoh is like every other Japanese company in the business, they want to grow market share. Ricoh had made it known they want to grow. They have yet to do anything to move the needle. Other companies are struggling too. What Does Fujifilm Have to Do to Compete in the West | Fstoppers
Fuji is also struggling to breakthrough and they are much more aggressive than Ricoh. Fuji is definitely having success, but they are a very small player in the game in terms of market share.

[BigMackCam]

That would depend on what Ricoh's goals are. Do they want to expand and grow market share? The K-1 and the 645Z both sold well above expectation which Ricoh seemed to be very happy about. How is the KP selling? K-1, K-1II, & 645Z are all at the end of their product cycles.... or they should be. If Ricoh is like every other Japanese company in the business, they want to grow market share. Ricoh had made it known they want to grow. They have yet to do anything to move the needle. Other companies are struggling too. What Does Fujifilm Have to Do to Compete in the West | Fstoppers
Fuji is also struggling to breakthrough and they are much more aggressive than Ricoh. Fuji is definitely having success, but they are a very small player in the game in terms of market share.

I don't know what Ricoh's goals are, though - like most of us - I'd love to. I think it's a mistake to assume Ricoh wants the same thing as Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji, Panasonic, etc. It might, but we just don't know. I think we can, however, assume that Ricoh ideally wants to either increase its business, or at least maintain it, rather than decrease... but I missed any previous definitive statement from Ricoh that it wished to grow market share... Do you have a link to that, out of interest?

The way I see it, Ricoh's doing just about enough to maintain what it currently has in terms of commitment from existing users... gain a few in some areas, lose a few in others, but generally retain the majority...

[reh321]

I don't know what Ricoh's goals are, though - like most of us - I'd love to. I think it's a mistake to assume Ricoh wants the same thing as Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji, Panasonic, etc. It might, but we just don't know. I think we can, however, assume that Ricoh ideally wants to either increase its business, or at least maintain it, rather than decrease... but I missed any previous definitive statement from Ricoh that it wished to grow market share... Do you have a link to that, out of interest?

The way I see it, Ricoh's doing just about enough to maintain what it currently has in terms of commitment from existing users... gain a few, lose a few, but generally retain the majority...

Didn't Ricoh say at some point that profit was more important than market share?

[Winder]

I don't know what Ricoh's goals are, though - like most of us - I'd love to. I think it's a mistake to assume Ricoh wants the same thing as Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji, Panasonic, etc. It might, but we just don't know. I think we can, however, assume that Ricoh ideally wants to either increase its business, or at least maintain it, rather than decrease... but I missed any previous definitive statement from Ricoh that it wished to grow market share... Do you have a link to that, out of interest?

The way I see it, Ricoh's doing just about enough to maintain what it currently has in terms of commitment from existing users... gain a few in some areas, lose a few in others, but generally retain the majority...

I don't think there is any doubt Ricoh wants to grow. Canon is a direct competitor in more industries than just cameras.


I can dig up interviews, but here is the most famous.

An Interview with Pentax Executive Vice President Jim Malcolm - Reviewed Cameras

So do you see Pentax in the next couple of years being a viable competitor to Canon and Nikon?
"...there will be three dominant imaging companies on a global basis and it will be Canon, Nikon, and Pentax/Ricoh"
No doubt about it. I have no hesitation, in my mind and in my business direction, that in the future—whether it’s three years or five years out—that there will be three dominant imaging companies on a global basis and it will be Canon, Nikon, and Pentax/Ricoh.

The reason I say that with such confidence is if you really look at Ricoh, which is our parent, Ricoh as a company is more than half the size of Canon and is twice the size of Nikon. And they’re already a dominant imaging company. They have a global footprint, they have office automation, and obviously the printer business and copier business is their heart. So if you had to compare Ricoh as a company we’re much more similar to that of Canon than we are of Nikon.

[clackers]

All other companies (Fuji, Olympus, Panasonic, Ricoh) combined have less than a 13% market share (the top 3 camera manufacturers gained 6.2% in 2018 to a total of 87.3%).

BCN data's pretty useless, as explained in the past.

If you were to believe it, Sony took a big hit here:

Canon starting to butcher Sony in FF mirrorless (as predicted) - PentaxForums.com

I don't.

But I note that Sony will only sell 3.6 million cameras in FY 2018 instead of 4.4 million in 2017, no lessons there for everybody.

Quartalszahlen von Sony, Nikon, Canon und Olympus: Nur einer kann gewinnen | photoscala

Canon have said they fear the market for ILCs will drop to fifty percent in the years to come.

Pentax, Panasonic, Leica, Fuji and Olympus are accustomed to being niche players, not sure how Canon, Nikon and even Sony are prepared on an organizational level to watch all the volume drop out, Winder.

[RobA_Oz]

Didn't Ricoh say at some point that profit was more important than market share?

When you have a small-volume product like Ricoh's cameras, that's undoubtedly true. Their copier-printer business wouldn't have been following that logic when they were engaged in take-overs, a few years back.

But I note that Sony will only sell 3.6 million cameras in FY 2018 instead of 4.4 million in 2017, no lessons there for everybody.

Unless 2017 was an exceptional year, a 20% drop over twelve months would be cause for some hefty reconsideration.

[biz-engineer]

Unless 2017 was an exceptional year, a 20% drop over twelve months would be cause for some hefty reconsideration.

Ricoh Imaging is the kind of business that can stay one year without revenue, we have seen it already, there was a big revenue slump before the K1 was released, and that didn't prevent to release a new camera model. So as long as there is a customer base and promising project for a new camera model, the business can continue.

[Mistral75]

(...)

Unless 2017 was an exceptional year, a 20% drop over twelve months would be cause for some hefty reconsideration.

It was not but remember that Sony is still heavily involved in compact cameras, including cameras with 1/2.3" sensors.

[Rondec]

When you have a small-volume product like Ricoh's cameras, that's undoubtedly true. Their copier-printer business wouldn't have been following that logic when they were engaged in take-overs, a few years back.



Unless 2017 was an exceptional year, a 20% drop over twelve months would be cause for some hefty reconsideration.

I think Sony has been shifting to trying to sell more expensive cameras. That means fewer sales overall, but more profit (at least in an ideal world).

[fsge]

The KP has been selling very well in Japan, and that is without aggressive price cutting. I’m fairly confident about this based on a few different indications.

- I heard from someone at retail at the time of launch that the KP had a huge number of pre-orders, exceeding even the pent-up demand for the K-1.
- Looking at the sales rankings over time, the KP has been higher than other K-mount cameras for the whole two years of its existence, and often by a big margin.
- There are some smaller stores that only stock one Pentax model. In the last two years it has been the KP. In the past it had been the lower end cameras.
- As a side effect, I’ve also noticed the DA Limited series doing better than before, especially the 20-40 zoom. I suspect one of the objectives of the camera was to provide the perfect platform for these lenses.

Since the KP sells at the same price as the K-3 used to, I don’t think Ricoh will see the KP as a failure, and I would expect a “KP2” at some point in future.

However, I’ve always suspected that Part 2 of the plan was a true high end APS-C camera. The CP+ interviews seem to support this. It’s only a pity it’s taking so long.

Thank you for these interesting points especially KP II to be. Having to wait at least one more year for K3 II successor maybe even more I decided to go for a KP for the next 2 years. KP II which would include i suppose top apsc tech in smaller body sounds very exciting

[Mistral75]

(...)
Fuji is also struggling to breakthrough and they are much more aggressive than Ricoh. Fuji is definitely having success, but they are a very small player in the game in terms of market share.

Fujifilm are not that small in the field of digital cameras and interchangeable lenses. They are for instance 3.4 times smaller than Nikon but 5.2 times bigger than Ricoh's Smart Vision.

[MMVIII]

Initial monthly production gives us a first indication of Ricoh Imaging's ambitions concerning a specific camera.

• K-1 Mark II: 3,500 units
• KP: 7,000
• K70: 5,000
• K-1: 7,000
• GR II: 5,000
• K-3 II: 10,000
• K-S2: 15,000
• K-S1: 20,000
• Q-S1: 18,000
• 645Z: 400
• K-3: 10,000
• K-50: 20,000
• Q7: 20,000

The numbers are interesting. Just for plain fun (1) and out of curiosity I made a plain table out of this data and tried to estimate the time of production of these cameras, under the very bold assumption that this numbers are monthly production throughout the production time. I did an ever bolder move and multiplied these numbers with the price of these cameras. And guess what, the numbers match all our speculation about quaterly turnover. No, of course not, these numbers are mainly meaningless as there are too many unknowns. But maybe someone can do something with them.

Edit: as you might have noticed the Qty is divided by 100, not 10.

[RGlasel]

the very bold assumption that this numbers are monthly production throughout the production time.

I think this has some value in determning what Ricoh's capacity to generate revenue from cameras is (could think of it as potential revenue). In most cases, initial production for a specific model will be the maximum over its production lifetime as the manufacturer tries to make a new model available as widely as possible. By your chart, we can see that Ricoh's revenue potential peaked in the second half of 2016 with the launch of the K-1 and K-70 (although the K-70 was replacing the K-S2, so little net gain there). The key thing I see is that regardless of what actual production figures are, potential revenue is less than half of what it once was. To remain profitable as a division under these circumstances is impressive, but unless Ricoh continues to release new models regularly, it won't generate enough revenue to support the development of additional new models. And without new models to buy, we either switch to buying something else (doesn't have to be cameras and lenses) or swap used equipment.

[normhead]

I would guess that Ricoh has probably fallen to less than 2% at this point and they don't seem to be doing anything to change that.

As long as they are profitable in a shrinking market, I'm not sure that's even an issue.

The issue for Pentax is not market share, it's profitability. A view expressed by their CEO, when he said all of Ricoh was to pursue profit margin, and specifically not market share.

This has been repeated so many times I'm getting tired of it.