Bloomberg article on camera industry

[Dirk]

Not sure if this was posted already, but Japanese camera makers are apparently at a crossroads here.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...as-at-41-megapixels-pressure-canon-nikon.html

 

[aizan]

anybody taking bets on which camera company goes broke next? i think it's a toss up between olympus and pentax.

 

[Dirk]

I'd go with Olympus.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

No news detected. Camera makers were always come and go.

 

[jarski]

thanks for sharing. my bet is Olympus too, will fall to Sony's hands.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

No news detected. Camera makers were always come and go.

Succinct and to the point. I agree.

 

[stewmander]

Poor Olympus...I hope they don't go under I like their m43 a lot. I would think their m43 would set them up to do better with the high quality in a small package crowd. Hopefully the market corrects itself without too many casualties.

 

[Sarcophilus Harrisii]

Fuji moving away from consumer cameras? I would have said they've been on the ascendant over the last couple of years on the basis of the success of their x series cameras.

 

[Spicy]

IMO there have been no camera-maker that has outclassed Fuji in the past 3 years. The last former reigning champ was Nikon when they introduced the D700, but other than that, there have been no particular manufacturers building anything with the heart-string-pulling power that some of the Japanese manufacturers exhibited in the 60s and 70s for quite some time. Not to say there have been no good products made, but the romance of that period has disappeared.

Basic tenet of free-market economics: innovate or die. Canikon have seen fit to rest on their laurels and shirk loyal customers with stupid offerings for the past few years. Additionally, both have been resistant to gutting their entry-level DSLR offerings. Both have been too shortsighted to realize that if they don't do it, Sony/Olympus/Fuji/Pentax/Samsung/Apple/HTC are more than happy to do so. Nobody's fault but their own for being morons and trying to push garbage on consumers instead of listening to them and coming up with a profitable way to offer what they have been screaming for (full frame compacts or competent small sensor/small lens offerings).

 

[DominikDUK]

Olympus is not a standalone company they are part of a keiretsu and I doubt that this conglomerate will kill of Olympus it's a matter of pride also Olympus has 70% of the market share for endoscopes and other medical optical instruments. Furthermore Sony is already the biggest shareholder with 11.5% of the shares. The japanese way of doing business is despite some changes still very different than the western way and many westeners don't get it. I also believe if the Keiretsu would have dropped Olympus they would have done it after the scandal and not now.

 

[willie_901]

Fuji is exiting the Walmart/Target P&S market (way too late... like all the other companies).

Their X series activities remain strong. But we know any company can change strategy overnight. Still, I am comfortable purchasing XF mount lenses as I consider the risk to be minimal. I do not feel this way about Olympus, Pentax or even Ricoh. These are highly subjective evaluations. I think Dominik's thoughts on Japanese business culture are very relevant.

 

[mwoenv]

It's interesting that the shift to digital for all these companies will be good only for less than 1.5-2 decades and now their businesses are severely threatened.

The mass market is gone, thanks to phone cameras, so they will have to concentrate on higher-end niches to survive. Maybe they can consider making a higher-end film camera model or two (35mm, medium format, large format) to serve that portion of niche users still interested in film. Maybe one of their next moves to stay alive is to go "backward"?

 

[Roger Hicks]

People look at numbers only when it suits them, and business publications almost invariably have almost theological agendas of their own. My favourite is the euro, from "broken, dysfunctional Europe". If the euro is so awful, how come it's appreciated 30-50% against both the US dollar and the pound sterling in a decade or so?

If you think this is irrelevant to the Bloomberg article, re-read the first sentence in this post. Then reflect that business journalists have to write about something, whether they understand it or not. Then, if you want to understand business even better, including the nature of survivor bias, read the Nasim Nicholas Taleb trilogy, Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan and Antifragile.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Range-rover]

I just got into micro 4/3rds last year and really love those
little things, Maybe Olympus and Pentax will swing things
around. The problem is we have to convert those people
with iphones and smartphones to get real cameras.

Range

 

[CameraQuest]

anybody taking bets on which camera company goes broke next? i think it's a toss up between olympus and pentax.

hmm. too late.
Pentax was bought out by Ricoh last year.

I think Olympus will survive.
Worst case it will be bought out, and survive in another form.

Stephen

 

[gb hill]

I just got into micro 4/3rds last year and really love those
little things, Maybe Olympus and Pentax will swing things
around. The problem is we have to convert those people
with iphones and smartphones to get real cameras.

Range

Not going to happen. The masses like to travel light plus the apps you can get for smartphones can out perform your present 4/3's camera. What I expect to see next is camera's like yours will have the ability to download apps. Seems the tide has turned. First it was post about film being killed off by digital. Now it's DSLR's & P&S being threatened by smartphones.

 

[Gregoyle]

... Olympus has 70% of the market share for endoscopes and other medical optical instruments...

This.

I go to the OR multiple times per week on a variety of procedures. Every laparoscope, endoscope, cystoscope, and arthroscope I see being used is made by Olympus, along with the associated image processing hardware. I don't think that Olympus as a company is going anywhere soon.

But their consumer camera division? Who knows. Maybe they will pull a Konica Minolta and sell it.

 

[Michalm]

Smartphones are replacing compact cameras , but I cannot see how they can replace cameras with aps or bigger sensor, their quality and ergonomics . P.S. this article appears to be written by someone with little knowledge about photography to say the least.

 

[Mackinaw]

Somebody posted this article a few weeks back.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2013/08/01/camera-shipments-2013-CIPA

Japanese digital camera production (not sales) plummeted 43% in the first six months of 2013. That's a staggering decline. And this decline hit all segments, P&S, DSLR, mirrorless, etc. Smartphones are definitely changing the industry.

No doubt to me that a major shakeout is going to happen. A industry just can't lose this much production and have things stay the same.

Jim B.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Smartphones are replacing compact cameras , but I cannot see how they can replace cameras with aps or bigger sensor, their quality and ergonomics . P.S. this article appears to be written by someone with little knowledge about photography to say the least.

cf my earlier post, "business journalists have to write about something, whether they understand it or not. "

Cheers,

R.