Nikon in Dire Straits

[combatentropy]

Nikon in "Dire Straits" as its Slump is Particularly Untimely

Smartphones and the pandemic are only partially to blame. Nikon had already been weak for a few years.

• operating deficit of almost half a billion dollars
• fear of conflicting with its DSLR camera sales made the company reluctant to produce a mirrorless camera. By the time it entered the market, Sony had long since entrenched itself.*
• a major difference between Canon and Nikon is that Canon is far more diversified.
• Nikon's healthcare business has been in a deficit since 2017 and its precision machinery business – where it has traditionally had the largest sales figures – is down 98%
• yet to fully recover from its third consecutive new product failure in consumer products (Nikon 1, Keymission, Nikon DL)
• to cut 20% of its international workforce by March of 2022 (details)

* I'm reminded of a quote by Steve Jobs, "If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will."

[Paul F]

Yep, not cannibalizing is one of the toughest things for a major market leader to get their head around. They get old, stodgy, comfortable, and afraid to take risks. The fact that they have something to lose is why they fail to act like a startup, which has nothing to lose.

[puredrifting]

As a former Nikon owner and fan, I find it sad that the once industry leader has come to this. But they are old school and failed to strategize as well as Canon did
and now they are paying the price for not innovating and changing.

[mcbob]

Time for some private investigations... They're so far away, it would take a walk of life down the tunnel of love for Romeo & Juliet to become the Sultans of Swing again.

What do they expect, money for nuthin'?

[IronFilm]

Nikon still has one half of the Camera Duopoly (soon/already a Tripoly? But for now, Nikon sells more ILC than Sony), and Nikon still has the biggest back catalogue of lenses. (and I think if you ignore kit lenses, has sold more F Mount lenses than EF Mount lenses? And has more specific lens models I think than Canon)

Nikon is and remains a major prestigious brand in its industry that is legendary.

I wouldn't rush to hastily write off Nikon, I'm not going to bet on Nikon to be the next company to exit the industry.

One possible gold mine that might turn around Nikons fortunes quickly is the current China vs USA trade war. Because the bans on exports for American companies is leading to Chinese trying to do more in making semi conductors themselves, and Nikon is positioned well to sell equipment & services to those new Chinese factories.

But yes, Nikon has had so much opportunity only to squander it, as after all it was Nikon which put HD video first into an ILC!

[DLD]

Nikon, much like Olympus, was fooled by the promises of a cartel. They agreed to play nice with one another and concentrate on the photography portion of the business. Well, the photography went to smartphones and video went to Canon and Sony. Poor Nikon wasn't even allowed to compete in the video sector with those two. Nor was it allowed to release a camera with the superior photo specs. Sony had to have the crown in the full frame sector (it let Fuji make a $10,000 FGX100 in the medium format but that's a small niche), leaving Nikon with nothing.

In a competitive market, Nikon would have had higher resolution DX line, a competitive FX line, a few videocentric models in both DX and FX, and a few C-70/C100/200 type "pro" video units. It might have made its P1000 with a higher res sensor. But it had to defer to other members.

And now it's likely to follow Olympus into a garbage bin. I had long anticipated that there will be only two major players left in the entire industry and it certainly looks this way now.

Panasonic, you're on the clock.

[Paul F]

.... I wouldn't rush to hastily write off Nikon, I'm not going to bet on Nikon to be the next company to exit the industry.!

I don't know. When you read stuff like this from their November 5th financial call, it's not exactly confidence building. On their plan to get back to being profitable:

"Shift to a structure that secures profits constantly even when revenue drops, through strengthening the business structure and diverting the sales and product mix"
"Focus on pro/hobbyist when product planning, development and sales"

Riveting, eh? Hopefully, there is something under the covers, but that's not the sort of presentation material that would make me a stockholder.

[morgan_moore]

Its a funny old world. Ive been nikon for decades and have a huge pie of glass. But only my 70-200F4 and a crappy kit zoom work with the latest AF generation.

Effectively my buy in is one 80-200 - so if ever there was a time to leave it would be now.

I bought the z6 because I wanted a 'handy camera' - an ability to do video without lugging my FS7 - but Im now thinking that was a mistake as the new sony sounds like it is actually professional in the footage (10bit 4k log)

But the nikon is still nice to use - my experience with mirrorless from sony and panny is that they are just horrid.

Do nikon use Sony sensors and are stuck with last years chuck outs ? I think so.. and that means being 2 years off the curve for ever.. death. Like panny with thier AF problems which IMO are all predictable from the board room and drawing board.

Of course any camera who's HDMI is vunerable and pokes out and lacks an ND is not really a tool for work. The market is wide open for a simple camera that is not fundamentally flawed.

Any maker who employs someone with a degree in engineering design and can get a GUI written by a grown up should and then tests with a few pros should wipe the floor.

Waffle waffle.

No one is really making me want to give them money, but Sony and Canon are much closer to not being useless. And that makes me shy awat from buying any $500+ nikkors.

My manual nikkors will always have a place from F35 to sony mirrorles and that is fine.

[morgan_moore]

Im teetering with nikon - I need to buy a 24-105 or 70-200 or 24-200 -basically put in another $1k to have a current single purpose zoom. I could do with $100 of cage too.

Or leave.

Here is a thing. I was chatting about a thing with a client and thought Id set up the nikon for web use as that client might want to Zoom at a higher level than webcam.

Well nikon have a software (as of 05/11/2020) and in two mins Im on skype chatting to a mate at 35/2 full frame - interesting.

But skype? a bit 1995 right.

I tried it with Zoom and it doesnt work.. maybe you can fix it but it didnt just work.

Any maker who does not take Zoom seriously is not taking themselves seriously.

[morgan_moore]

The blogerati are 'interesting' there is oodles of chat on DR or whatever but little discussion of the cameras in use. This does not help anyone but sony - which are unusable but have good tech specs.