News: Japan's Olympus sees profits plunge on weak digital camera sales

[ywenz]

When you keep insisting that Olympus products are "crap" you're saying more about yourself than you are about Olympus. 🙁

R.J.

I used various Olympus Camedias a few years ago and it was crap. I say crap because relative to the Digital Elph that I was also using, the Olympus had horrible ergonomics and control, the replay speed was slow, and ate batteries like it was nothing. Basically it was inferior to the Canon in every category. I look at their current DSLR offerings and I just shake my head.. So yeah I guess I was talking about myself. I think Olympus has been in the business of making crapping digital cameras.. I'll change my mind of course when they come out with one that impresses me.

 

[bmattock]

Olympus sells more digicams than Nikon??? Kodak sells more than Olympus???

R.J.

Well, I only quoted the article, but yes, that sounds about right. Just talking sheer numbers here. Olympus digicams tend to cost less than Nikon, just drop by Walmart and see how many Nikons they have there. Lots of Kodaks and Olympus and Sony, some HP, and starting to see more Samsung. Those big box guys are the movers in terms of sales numbers to Joe Sixpack.

 

[bmattock]

I used various Olympus Camedias a few years ago and it was crap. I say crap because relative to the Digital Elph that I was also using, the Olympus had horrible ergonomics and control, the replay speed was slow, and ate batteries like it was nothing. Basically it was inferior to the Canon in every category. I look at their current DSLR offerings and just shake my head.. So yeah I guess I was talking about myself. I think Olympus has been in the business of making crapping digital cameras.. I'll change my mind of course when they come out with one that impresses me.

Everybody has their opinion, and that's cool.

My first digicam was a sub-megapixel Olympus, it still works fine, not that I want to use it for anything. Next was a Pentax Optio 330 (stolen or lost), followed by an Olympus D-40Zoom. Like you, I find the D-40 is a battery eater and is slow on top of it.

The Nikon Coolpix 995 that I bought my wife when I bought my Pentax Optio was superior to the Pentax and now it is superior to the Olympus in terms of image quality - and hers is a 3.2 megapixel.

I have nothing against Olympus, that has just been my experience.

On the bright side - I recently resurrected my Oly Digi for pocket grab-shot use, what I used to use my Oly XA2 for. I discovered that if you load the thing with a single rechargeable CR-V3 Lithium Ion battery instead of those NiMH AA batteries, it stops eating them like candy. Got about 90 images out of one the other day, that was a record - with my 2500 MH AA's, I was getting maybe 10 shots. Oly said they could fix it - for $285.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Richard Black]

"Unbiased Sample"

"Unbiased Sample"

🙂 I have held the Olympus E-300, E-500, Pentax *istDS, and a variety of fixed lens prosumer digital cameras from Olympus, Pentax, Nikon, and K-M. I'm want to see the 5D to see how it compares. None of the above feel cheap and they all see well designed when you hold them. I haven't tested them but have relied on Steve's review on the web. They have reviewed a great number of them. The complaints on the Oly about delay in action when tripping the shutter, we need a short name for that, is not born out by their tests or those on dpreview. I am not a digital fan but I use them on ocassion. Popular Photo'y has some interesting articles about 10 little known items on a series of d'cameras and some of the setting do speed up the start up and response. I think I prefer the e-300 over the e-500. It has a heftier feel, but then that says more about me than... 😛

 

[pvdhaar]

...delay in action when tripping the shutter, we need a short name for that...

Let's call it shutter lag.. 🙂

 

[bmattock]

Let's call it shutter lag.. 🙂

I'd rather call it "Susan."

 

[pvdhaar]

I'd rather call it "Susan."

What's that an acronym for? 😉

 

[bmattock]

What's that an acronym for? 😉

Nothing, I just like the name.

 

[bmattock]

Olympus sells more digicams than Nikon??? Kodak sells more than Olympus???

R.J.

I just came across this - dateline today...

http://www.10nbc.com/news.asp?template=item&story_id=16737

Kodak retains lead over Japanese in U.S. digital-camera market
11/10/05


ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) - For the fourth straight quarter, Eastman Kodak Co. retained its lead over Japanese rivals Canon Inc. and Sony Corp. in the U.S. digital-camera market. In the July-to-September period, digital camera shipments to domestic retailers rose nearly 13 percent to 5.6 million from 5 million a year earlier, research firm IDC of Framingham, Mass., reported Thursday.

Photography-equipment maker Kodak shipped 1.25 million digital cameras in the quarter - 21 percent more than in last year's third quarter - and its market share rose to 21.3 percent from 19.8 percent, IDC said.

Canon and Sony were tied for second place, each with 1 million shipments and a 17.7 percent slice of the U.S. market. But longtime front-runner Sony, which clung to the No. 1 spot with a 20 percent share a year ago, backpedaled while Canon made up ground on its year-ago share of 16 percent.

Fuji Photo Film Co. jumped from seventh to fourth place with 483,000 shipments, an 8.6 percent share, while Olympus Corp. slipped down to a 7.1 percent share and a virtual tie for fifth with Nikon Corp. Next was Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard Co. with 6.7 percent.

Worldwide, Kodak ranks third in digital camera sales behind Sony and Canon.

Kodak warned in September that a sluggish economy would likely force it to build fewer digital cameras for the end-of-year holiday season, when as much as half of all camera sales occur each year. But IDC analyst Christopher Chute expects dealer discounts and

promotions to generate around 10.5 million digital camera sales in the fourth quarter, up 15 percent from a year earlier.

Manufacturers "may not make as much money as they thought they might, but I think the shipment volumes will be there because dealers as always are willing to drive traffic no matter what's going on," he said, adding that the market will likely flatten out next year.

Digital cameras, a novelty item in the late 1990s, began outselling film cameras in the United States in 2003. By the end of this year, "half of American households will own at least one camera," and the penetration rate could peak at around 62 percent

in 2009, Chute said.

InfoTrends, a research firm in Weymouth, Mass., predicted that 26 million digital cameras would be sold this year in North America and the market could peak at nearly 28 million in 2006.