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10-16-2013, 11:27 AM   #1
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End of Nikon?

I saw on PF a little bit ago someone saying that Nikon is at greater risk of getting wiped out of existence that other brands because it only focuses on cameras. He stated how Canon also does printers and Pentax is owned by a larger company Ricoh who does printers among other stuff. I would like to point out that Nikon is owned by one of the largest companies on the planet Mitsubishi Group, who makes anything and everything. I don't think Nikon is going to be singled out for extermination. Looking at Canon and their printers it would be good to note that as offices and photo sharing gets more and more paperless, the need for printers will fade.

10-16-2013, 02:15 PM   #2
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QuoteOriginally posted by shaolen Quote
I saw on PF a little bit ago someone saying that Nikon is at greater risk of getting wiped out of existence that other brands because it only focuses on cameras. He stated how Canon also does printers and Pentax is owned by a larger company Ricoh who does printers among other stuff. I would like to point out that Nikon is owned by one of the largest companies on the planet Mitsubishi Group, who makes anything and everything. I don't think Nikon is going to be singled out for extermination. Looking at Canon and their printers it would be good to note that as offices and photo sharing gets more and more paperless, the need for printers will fade.
And Canon makes lousy printers. Once they can't charge 1000% markups on ink, what will they do? . Any one of the major companies can go belly up if they don't keep up with innovation(their parent companies can cut their losses). Canon's sensor is woefully out of date, aside from the Dual Pixel AF they just came out with. That makes them pretty vulnerable. They might need to start buying sensors from Sony or Toshiba.

Being an independent subsidiary, Nikon's debt does not affect the parent company. It can file bankruptcy and they can drop it like a lizard drops its tail. Of course all the companies organize like that.
10-16-2013, 02:48 PM   #3
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Nikon is doing a lot more that Camera
10-16-2013, 03:32 PM   #4
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If I'm following correctly, it looks like you are saying that,
(1) camera sales will disappear, and
(2) Nikon only sells cameras, therefore,
(3) Nikon will disappear, but
(4) Canon will still sell printers.

But if camera sales do disappear, then who cares if Nikon disappears? Nobody was buying cameras anyway.

I think that as long as people buy cameras, Nikon will be around. Which is more than I can say for some camera companies.

10-16-2013, 03:55 PM   #5
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The REAL risk is with corporations: They tend to simply drop a business if it gets slow. Think of IBM and their PC/Thinkpad business, now disks. Or of Siemens and their phone business (avoiding Nokia's fate).

I actually expect Canon, Ricoh, Panasonic and Samsung all to drop their camera business sooner or later, after cameras became an enthusiasts only niche made obsolete by lenss array smart phones. I rather see Olympus, Nikon, Zeiss, Leica, Hasselblad to stay in a market which already is a niche for some of them.
10-16-2013, 04:31 PM   #6
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QuoteOriginally posted by falconeye Quote
The REAL risk is with corporations: They tend to simply drop a business if it gets slow. Think of IBM and their PC/Thinkpad business, now disks. Or of Siemens and their phone business (avoiding Nokia's fate).

I actually expect Canon, Ricoh, Panasonic and Samsung all to drop their camera business sooner or later, after cameras became an enthusiasts only niche made obsolete by lenss array smart phones. I rather see Olympus, Nikon, Zeiss, Leica, Hasselblad to stay in a market which already is a niche for some of them.
Fortunately, Japanese corporations seem to be a bit more stubborn than others and stay in the market a bit longer. More competition is better for us.
10-17-2013, 02:24 PM   #7
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Pentax and Olympus are/were diversified into e.g. medical optics and so on. Hoya just wanted those bits from Pentax for example.

Nikon is vulnerable in their consumer business; they likely have a good hold on the pro business at the moment. But does the pro business bring in enough revenue and margin to make the corporate cut? Nikon's consumer vulnerability has more to do with the overall drop in the volumes + disruptive technology than anything else, and all the manufacturers are facing that issue. In the past, Nikon has shown the ability to jump on a trend (via its pro linkage) when the trend becomes important. We'll see if they do so this time.

One of the interesting developments is how the manufacturers all have clambered on the high-end of each format - the Fujis, the Olympuses, the high end fixed lens compacts, etc... Just how many 'patterns' (like they said 100 years ago) or distinct formats the market will bear in the long run is also to be seen. Will a relatively closed system such as Fuji manage against the more open ones of APS-C and 4/3?

In this light the seemingly cautious Pentax may have a good strategy; the Sony strategy seems to be throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.

10-17-2013, 04:31 PM   #8
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End of Nikon?

QuoteOriginally posted by Nesster Quote
In this light the seemingly cautious Pentax may have a good strategy; the Sony strategy seems to be throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.
Sony at least attacks and keeps and probably grows its market share.
Pentax lives from its loyal, but shrinking user base and if they don't start to attack the leaders, will eventually become marginal. I call it the Atari effect.
10-17-2013, 06:51 PM   #9
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QuoteOriginally posted by falconeye Quote

I actually expect Canon, Ricoh, Panasonic and Samsung all to drop their camera business sooner or later, after cameras became an enthusiasts only niche made obsolete by lenss array smart phones. I rather see Olympus, Nikon, Zeiss, Leica, Hasselblad to stay in a market which already is a niche for some of them.

Yeah I have a feeling smartphones are going to annihilate a huge portion of the market(they already have to a degree). The ceiling for improvement is so high for camera phones.

11 years ago they had .3 mega pixel cameras


Now we have 13 mega pixel cameras.





What are smart phone cameras going to be like in another 10 years? I can't see much surviving in the future besides more of the niche market geared at pros and enthusiasts.
10-17-2013, 07:23 PM   #10
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I think that small-sensor compacts will be annihilated, but cameras with larger sensors (targeted mostly at people who are in to photography) will definitely stick around, as their performance will still be higher than that of smartphones thanks to the laws of physics and optics, which time won't change.

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10-17-2013, 08:34 PM   #11
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shaolen here's Nikon's 2013 annual report, it's more than just cameras.

http://www.nikon.com/about/ir/ir_library/ar/pdf/ar2013/13annual_e.pdf
10-17-2013, 09:02 PM   #12
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QuoteOriginally posted by bobmaxja Quote
Nikon is doing a lot more that Camera
QuoteOriginally posted by Clicker Quote
shaolen here's Nikon's 2013 annual report, it's more than just cameras.

http://www.nikon.com/about/ir/ir_library/ar/pdf/ar2013/13annual_e.pdf
Definitely more than cameras. Like Pentax they make excellent sport optics. Unlike Pentax, they make excellent microscopes and are a leader in industrial process optics and technical instrumentation.


Steve
10-17-2013, 09:28 PM   #13
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QuoteOriginally posted by Clicker Quote
shaolen here's Nikon's 2013 annual report, it's more than just cameras.

http://www.nikon.com/about/ir/ir_library/ar/pdf/ar2013/13annual_e.pdf
The non imaging products parts of the company (precision equipment and instruments) represent 25% of revenue. Precision equipment has had a drastic decline in revenue and profitability, and instruments is recording an operating loss (increased over previous years' loss). Imaging products appears to be the only area of the company doing relatively well.

Some interesting comments in the imaging products section of the report:
- Market conditions began to deteriorate in late November 2012.
- Unfortunately, as market conditions worsened and retail prices fell, particularly affecting entry-model digital SLR cameras, we faced a serious decline in profitability. This has served as an important lesson for us.
- We expect the market for interchangeable lens-type digital cameras to continue expanding in the fiscal year ending March 2014, with particularly strong growth in non-reflex digital cameras.
10-18-2013, 12:02 AM   #14
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Sony A7R Hands-On

QuoteQuote:
The world-wide trend is toward smaller cameras. Maybe it's the aging population, or maybe just a Japanese trend that is slowing spreading around the world. (Apparently more than 50% of new DSLR style camera sales in Japan are now Compact System Cameras rather than larger cameras with optical finders).

With the A7R and A7 Sony has leapt over the product category chasm in a very cleaver way. They have introduced large sensor, high-resolution cameras but made them the size of Compact Systems. They have provided a migration path for those who own Alpha lenses, and also a migration path for those who own NEX E-mount lenses. The former requires the use of a lens adaptor, while the latter means an APS-C sized image rather than full frame, but it's a clever solution to be sure.
It appears that Nikon chose the wrong time to push their camera lines towards the large end of the range. Its difficult for me to believe that they can't or won't rectify their mistake - if thats what it is.

It does seem to me that cameras have become a largely consumer product that is less driven by professionals than it used to be. It would be interesting to see statistics on photography related jobs.
10-18-2013, 07:23 AM   #15
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QuoteOriginally posted by Adam Quote
their performance will still be higher than that of smartphones thanks to the laws of physics and optics, which time won't change.
Yes and no.

It is all related to light gathering capability and this is total lens surface. A smart phone with a lens array on its back (think of 9, 16, 25 or 36 ... lens/sensor modules on the back) can easily make up for its crop factor and match full frame performance.

May not happen tommorrow, but sooner or later dedicated cameras will be a niche like high end audio is today.
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