[reh321]

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.

The K-1ii was released just a year ago; being profitable is difficult if a company sells a given design for just a year or so. If you look at what the other companies are doing, Pentax should be able to sell the K-70, KP, and K-1ii for some time in the future, continuing to receive profits long after their design costs have been covered. We are long past the point in the digital age where so much progress is made in one year that a company needs to constantly 'churn' their inventory.

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Last edited by reh321; 03-06-2019 at 09:05 AM.

[RonHendriks1966]

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

These numbers are goals set. If they have reached them is a different matter. So how does it work? You plan sales and production. For your production you need parts from other makers. Think of motherboard, processor, shutter, mirror, buttons, the box and so on and on. So you place orders for these parts well ahead to have them delivered to your factory for assembling. They need to be all there, complete and at the right moment. So you plan a monthly start production and order the parts for it.......6 months ahead sometimes and for a period that is fixed......like 3 - 6 months or so and during that time you can change your production level.....up or down.....Whatever the market needs. So sometimes you see a manufacturer saying sorry for delays due to high demand and they can just not so simply make a bigger production.

[clackers]

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.

+1.

In this difficult time, Ricoh's instructions to its divisions are *to survive*, not acquire marketshare. They are on a financial dripfeed.

Even Canon has stopped developing EF lenses for a year to throw resources at its new FF mirrorless platform, with budget cuts the biggest company in the business doesn't have the capacity to do both.

Sony has had to ignore the low end and aim at the much smaller group of prosumers with expensive products.

Fuji has come out with a five thousand dollar 200mm f2 lens and medium format, Panasonic with FF, in a scramble to get out of the consumer camera market. Hasselblad sold itself to a Chinese drone manufacturer.

Everyone is doing their own thing to keep going, and company boards simply have more data and know the situation better than us internet pundits. It's why they drive a Lexus and we armchair quarterbacks just sit behind our keyboards.

[monochrome]

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.

I’m glad to read your comments. My KP - bought from a member used less than a month after initial release - has brought me nothing but delight and joy. That is also true of the K-1 - delight and joy. I’ve never understood the criticisms of KP. I’ve always thought it is a much better camera than the members give it credit to be. They just wanted something else and dismissed it out of hand. I never thought it was a replacement for a flagship APSc body and insisted so at the time - but was effectively shouted down. I don’t believe Pentax ever said KP was their top APSc camera.

My inner suspicion is Pentax is taking their time for a tear down of aged base code throughout the platform architecture to leap forward with their technology in the next release so they are ‘current’ with their competitors. Evolution is often not an incremental process.

I would start with my top higher volume camera (APSc), then apply the technology to the next release of my premium high-end camera (36x24) and my super-premium low volume camera (645). That spreads the development and component costs over multiple platforms. The lower priced models can utilize some one-generation- aged tech that is still very good.

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Last edited by monochrome; 03-06-2019 at 09:34 PM.

[mee]

My inner suspicion is Pentax is taking their time to leap forward with their technology in the next release so they are ‘current’ with their competitors.

That is an easy conclusion to come to considering they have all but said the very same thing in the translated discussions at CP+.

You don't expect an incremental change in performance if you are switching sensor AND processor together. Do you?

[Paul the Sunman]

My inner suspicion is Pentax is taking their time for a tear down of aged base code throughout the platform architecture to leap forward with their technology in the next release so they are ‘current’ with their competitors. Evolution is often not an incremental process. .

This is why I'm excited but not impatient to see the next APS-C flagship. I expect something special, and am willing to wait (the burden of every Pentaxian). We had to wait for the DFA* 50 and 70-200, but it was well worth it. Spectacular outcomes blunt the pain of impatience.

[clackers]

You don't expect an incremental change in performance if you are switching sensor AND processor together. Do you?

They will really have to work out that product. If it's to have the specs of a D500 or XT Pro2 it will have to be priced as much as one, probably more because of the smaller sales volume versus the other companies - economies of scale, all that.

Their modelling will point out such a thing then approaches or exceeds the K-1 in cost.

On that basis I can think of arguments from the company's point of view (not the consumer's!) both for and against it.

One thing to look at is the inclusion of previously developed technology, because it's already been paid for - you can see that the K-1 got the K-3's internals, the Ricoh GR's fonts, the K-70's noise reduction chip in the Mark II, and an evolved version of the 645Z's tilt screen that they were particularly proud of.

The GR III has a touchscreen and is Android based, apparently. This makes for some possibilities.

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Last edited by clackers; 03-06-2019 at 10:25 PM.

[monochrome]

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.

The factory diesn’t get retail price. There are several markups along the way. Unfortunately we have no idea what at price the factory sells products to the Distributors.

[surfar]

XT Pro2

Glad you are up to date!

[MMVIII]

The factory diesn’t get retail price. There are several markups along the way. Unfortunately we have no idea what at price the factory sells products to the Distributors.

as I said, there are many unknowns in this. what is the part that really comes to the manufacturer, how long is the initial production sum kept, how is the sales graph over the lifetime of a camera, and lenses are not considered at all. Would be interesting to know, but I doubt this can be deducted from anything publicly available.

[aurele]

I’m glad to read your comments. My KP - bought from a member used less than a month after initial release - has brought me nothing but delight and joy. That is also true of the K-1 - delight and joy. I’ve never understood the criticisms of KP. I’ve always thought it is a much better camera than the members give it credit to be. They just wanted something else and dismissed it out of hand. I never thought it was a replacement for a flagship APSc body and insisted so at the time - but was effectively shouted down. I don’t believe Pentax ever said KP was their top APSc camera.

My inner suspicion is Pentax is taking their time for a tear down of aged base code throughout the platform architecture to leap forward with their technology in the next release so they are ‘current’ with their competitors. Evolution is often not an incremental process.

I would start with my top higher volume camera (APSc), then apply the technology to the next release of my premium high-end camera (36x24) and my super-premium low volume camera (645). That spreads the development and component costs over multiple platforms. The lower priced models can utilize some one-generation- aged tech that is still very good.

Considering how much chip founderies have progressed in the last 5 years, and how power efficient or powerfull chips can be now, i'm pretty much with you about Pentax renewing it's architecture to adapt if for the future.

When i see the HD coating being spread through various model of lens, i think they also are rationalizing their product line, in order to get more parts in common trhough various lens, or body.

People just bought a new body and already hope for a new one to come out. Same for lenses. They never gets satisfied

[fsge]

They will really have to work out that product. If it's to have the specs of a D500 or XT Pro2 it will have to be priced as much as one, probably more because of the smaller sales volume versus the other companies - economies of scale, all that.

Their modelling will point out such a thing then approaches or exceeds the K-1 in cost.

On that basis I can think of arguments from the company's point of view (not the consumer's!) both for and against it.

One thing to look at is the inclusion of previously developed technology, because it's already been paid for - you can see that the K-1 got the K-3's internals, the Ricoh GR's fonts, the K-70's noise reduction chip in the Mark II, and an evolved version of the 645Z's tilt screen that they were particularly proud of.

The GR III has a touchscreen and is Android based, apparently. This makes for some possibilities.

A pentax D500 like at an even higher price tag would be a miss I am afraid.
I guess this APSC flagship should end up in the 1200-1500 range, whatever the currency. More would be detrimental to this familiar pentax "bang for the buck" image.
That would lead to a SLRs portfolio looking like :
K70 or equivalent (500) < KP or equivalent (800) < K3 III (1300) < entry level FF (1600) < K1 II or top FF (2000)

---------- Post added 03-07-2019 at 11:21 AM ----------

I’m glad to read your comments. My KP - bought from a member used less than a month after initial release - has brought me nothing but delight and joy. That is also true of the K-1 - delight and joy. I’ve never understood the criticisms of KP. I’ve always thought it is a much better camera than the members give it credit to be. They just wanted something else and dismissed it out of hand. I never thought it was a replacement for a flagship APSc body and insisted so at the time - but was effectively shouted down. I don’t believe Pentax ever said KP was their top APSc camera.

My inner suspicion is Pentax is taking their time for a tear down of aged base code throughout the platform architecture to leap forward with their technology in the next release so they are ‘current’ with their competitors. Evolution is often not an incremental process.

I would start with my top higher volume camera (APSc), then apply the technology to the next release of my premium high-end camera (36x24) and my super-premium low volume camera (645). That spreads the development and component costs over multiple platforms. The lower priced models can utilize some one-generation- aged tech that is still very good.

Following several testimonies like yours I finally decided to buy a KP, ordered it yesterday with 55-300 HD as a gift!

[gazonk]

I like all the love the KP gets, I almost consider replacing my beloved K-5 with a camera without top lcd now! But if I were to, I couldn’t by it from Norway’s most dedicated Pentax dealer fovi.no - they list it as discontinued!

[clackers]

A pentax D500 like at an even higher price tag would be a miss I am afraid.
I guess this APSC flagship should end up in the 1200-1500 range, whatever the currency. More would be detrimental to this familiar pentax "bang for the buck" image.

Yeah, I asked a few weeks back in another thread individuals whether the next flagship should be less than $1200 or over $1500, for example, because you can displease one group of buyers and be unaffordable to another, incremental or major upgrade.

Some real number crunching by suits would have to be involved.

[mee]

They will really have to work out that product. If it's to have the specs of a D500 or XT Pro2 it will have to be priced as much as one, probably more because of the smaller sales volume versus the other companies - economies of scale, all that.

Their modelling will point out such a thing then approaches or exceeds the K-1 in cost.

On that basis I can think of arguments from the company's point of view (not the consumer's!) both for and against it.

One thing to look at is the inclusion of previously developed technology, because it's already been paid for - you can see that the K-1 got the K-3's internals, the Ricoh GR's fonts, the K-70's noise reduction chip in the Mark II, and an evolved version of the 645Z's tilt screen that they were particularly proud of.

The GR III has a touchscreen and is Android based, apparently. This makes for some possibilities.

I'm personally not expecting D500 type performance. But a sizeable improvement still... at least with AF tracking.


I'm glad you mentioned previously developed technology. Nikon made it work in the D500, because they designed that 153 point AF module for the FF and flagship D5 (costing over 6 grand) first. Then transplanted it into the D500 to make a 2k USD body. I think that is still rather incredible that they made a FF autofocus module work in a crop body.


Anywho, I don't see Ricoh fronting the cost to match it in a DSLR. And I also don't see them making a mirrorless. So I am expecting more of a D7200 speed body which, with 51 points and several group modes, is quite competent imo. If they come up with more, all the better.


But pricing is key.. It would be interesting if Ricoh offered a new FF with an improved AF system and pulled a Nikon. But I suspect they won't go that route. Meanwhile D500 prices are not getting any higher...


The K-1 launched at a thousand dollars less than the comparable Nikon body (D810). I'm not expecting something so dramatic either (honestly the D810 is/was at retail overpriced), but let's see what they do with the upcoming crop!