[mecrox]

Nikon seem to have been having a miserable time for several years now. None of their businesses seem to make money and it looks as if there is little prospect any of them will do more than struggle any time soon. Nikon still make several of the best cameras anyone can buy at that price point as well as many superb lenses. And of course they still have a worldwide famous brand name. But it isn't necessarily cameras alone which will be the decisive factor here but the whole group's overall situation - 24,000 staff, many offices and factories to pay for and a massive financial headache. Supposing all that can be balanced on sales of a D3xxx, D5xxx, D7xxx and D8xxx is pretty optimistic in a shrinking market and when Nikon have missed out on so many things, like modern video. Difficult to see a happy outcome which doesn't involve some kind of merger or consolidation.

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Last edited by mecrox; 02-14-2017 at 05:41 AM.

[normhead]

Refurbed D500 for $1600US these days (very tempting actually).
Going to be tough for Pentax to launch something similar at a higher price point than that.

M

Depends on whether or not you think you want a D500.

[pathdoc]

Maybe Ricoh could bail them out a bit in exchange for access to their AF algorithms?

Nikon might have to consolidate their camera and lens lineups a little...

[NZ_Ross]

Maybe Ricoh could bail them out a bit in exchange for access to their AF algorithms?

Nikon might have to consolidate their camera and lens lineups a little...

I did some analysis a couple of years ago here on PF that suggested Nikon was most likely to get into trouble financially longer term, and that they could be a acquisition target for Ricoh if in fact Ricoh were taking a 'beat Canon' strategy.

It seems at least some of that analysis is coming to pass, what will be extremely interesting is where is heads next. Nikon financials and further market comment due tomorrow, so there will be more information then.

[monochrome]

I did some analysis a couple of years ago here on PF that suggested Nikon was most likely to get into trouble financially longer term, and that they could be a acquisition target for Ricoh if in fact Ricoh were taking a 'beat Canon' strategy.

It seems at least some of that analysis is coming to pass, what will be extremely interesting is where is heads next. Nikon financials and further market comment due tomorrow, so there will be more information then.

I would expect an earth-shattering KABOOM!

Such has been Ricoh's strategy in the past, but Nikon isn't going anywhere.

Though publicly traded, Nikon is part of Mitsubishi Group (through Heavy Industries) and owns significant positions in and is significantly cross-owned by the 40 other companies in the Group. Nikon's CEO participates in the highly influential Friday Gathering, once a formal group strategy session, but now only social (!).

Nikon Precision (US), which normally represents 1/3 of Nikon's revenue, is the second largest maker of photolithographic steppers for semiconductor manufacture. The number one maker has invested heavily in new technology while NP has fallen behind during the extended global economic slowdown, and has suffered under a comparatively strong Yen and Dollar. While the Imaging Group has certainly suffered since 03/2014, the major losses have occurred at Precision as ASML (Netherlands) has won major orders from Nikon's traditional customers.

Times are not good, but Nikon has access to all the capital it needs once it rationalizes its operations.

[rawr]

acquisition target for Ricoh

Mitsubishi (owner of Nikon) would have to agree.

I hope Nikon camera continues. They use many of the same suppliers as Pentax - eg sensors, image processing chips, shutters, lens blanks, probably much more along the industrial supply chain too - which keeps prices down for Pentax.

[mee]

Is this really news? We knew this last year Nothing New at Photokina!??! - Page 14 - PentaxForums.com

[Mistral75]

[pinholecam]

Nikon (as well as Canon ), ramped up factory/equipment/labour in the good days to meet demand.
It also spawned this 'race to the bottom' on price and unrealistic expectation that every half a year to a year comes new camera innovation/features. (all costing money)
Now, the camera fad is over (since about 3-4yrs back) with the lower end of the market disappearing before alot of this capacity/inventory can adjust.
We see close out prices for the D3000, D3100, D3x00, D5100, etc (newspapers advertise these sales week after week here).


Phones have eaten away low end of the market, together with the end of the DSLR fad of previous years.
Basically pns, low end DSLR are not being bought by that user base.


I don't think its the end.
Nikon (as with any other camera company) will just have to scale down and slow down the development/release cycle.
Things will start to cater for the serious enthusiast market rather than a consumer/layman one, and prices will go up as volume goes down.

[beholder3]

Nikon (as with any other camera company) will just have to scale down

This is far from a "just".

Most overheads (which are a major part of costs) do not scale easily with production capacity.
Logistics for smaller production runs are more expensive and more complex.

Marketing and store presence costs money. If they scale down this it will have to hurt their sales even more than what was up until now.

A pro service organisation must be fed or scrapped. You can not offer "half" of it.

Let's remember: The current decline has vaporized all gains Nikon got during the last 12 years.
Scaling company overheads back to levels from 12 years ago is not done quick or without negative impacts.

And today people buy Nikon as a Canon clone, so their expectations are the same with regards to service, store presence, marketing. While Canon can continue, Nikon must cut back. This might cause even more people to perceive Nikon as far from competitive and could very well speed up the downturn.

Obviously enthusiasts also will think twice now, if they want to invest into a potentially dying brand, when Canon continues to offer better products. And how is the Nikon 1 series different from Samsung NX?

CP+ will show what they do. If they dare demand major price hikes, I predict it will not take more than 3 years for them to shrink back to a small player as panasonic is.

[mecrox]

This is far from a "just".

Most overheads (which are a major part of costs) do not scale easily with production capacity.
Logistics for smaller production runs are more expensive and more complex.

Marketing and store presence costs money. If they scale down this it will have to hurt their sales even more than what was up until now.

A pro service organisation must be fed or scrapped. You can not offer "half" of it.

Let's remember: The current decline has vaporized all gains Nikon got during the last 12 years.
Scaling company overheads back to levels from 12 years ago is not done quick or without negative impacts.

And today people buy Nikon as a Canon clone, so their expectations are the same with regards to service, store presence, marketing. While Canon can continue, Nikon must cut back. This might cause even more people to perceive Nikon as far from competitive and could very well speed up the downturn.

Obviously enthusiasts also will think twice now, if they want to invest into a potentially dying brand, when Canon continues to offer better products. And how is the Nikon 1 series different from Samsung NX?

CP+ will show what they do. If they dare demand major price hikes, I predict it will not take more than 3 years for them to shrink back to a small player as panasonic is.

That's a pretty neat summary of what must be a nightmare for Nikon, so thank you for it, though it seems one a long time in the making. The extraordinary thing is the number of industry commentators and journos who've been writing about this for some years now, and yet the overall messages the market has been sending never seem to have reached Nikon HQ. It's almost as if a whole generation of people totally didn't get it.

Your point about price hikes is interesting. There must be some danger of this strategy simply blowing up in the camera industry's face if buyers, very simply, don't buy. The problem here perhaps is that cheap, even basic cameras have now got so good that there really isn't much of a penalty - or nothing like the penalty there used to be - in sticking to the lower end of the market. Chances are well under 500 notes will still get you a modern 20-24 mpx sensor which with modern software and a simply competent rather than great kit lens is likely to produce pics good enough for 90 out of 100 people never to know the difference from a vastly more expensive machine. K50, KS2, K70 alone can do this and so (not so well ) can a D3000 series camera. Clearly not true for extreme sports and telephoto but those are strictly minority interests.

[gatorguy]

Refurbed D500 for $1600US these days (very tempting actually).
Going to be tough for Pentax to launch something similar at a higher price point than that.

M

Refurb'd? I see brand new ones on line for under $1500.

[awscreo]

Pretty sure Nikon will weather the storm. D820 (or whatever it will be in terms of successor to the d810) should be able to sell a lot of copies, same as the d750 successor. All my friends that use nikon are waiting for those two releases to upgrade their fairly old bodies (one of them is still using d800 to much success too). If rumors are true, and d760 would have a similar low-rise res sensor (24-30mp) with improved low light capability and focusing, and D820 will have a really high res sensor, they should be able to get people to upgrade.

What I find weird is that the keymission thingies had such terrible video quality. I don't get it, why bother competing with current players in the action cam niche, and come out with a worse project for more money? That seemed like a huge misstep by nikon, look at Amazon customer reviews, the 360 one has 2 stars! The gopro competitor has 3 stars, same as the odd clip on thing. Just strange.

Anyway, I'm sure they'll be OK, and if not, I'll be sad to see such legendary brand to go down like that..

[mee]

Refurb'd? I see brand new ones on line for under $1500.

Not in the US, unless they are grey market. But grey market don't count.

[gatorguy]

Not in the US, unless they are grey market. But grey market don't count.

SLR direct
PowerSellerDigital.com

No idea if they're legit or not, but they don't mention them as either a refurb or international version as far as I could find.