OLYMPUS selling off camera division

No one is surprised that point-and-shoot cameras are dead, and few people lament them. But if that means you can't stay in business, well that just don't make no sense. There are plenty of companies, in a variety of fields, who make a healthy living making things only for a narrow slice of the population, usually professionals of some sort: Vulcan ovens for chefs, Caterpillar construction machines (no one is buying those for their home landscaping projects), those sadistic companies that make tools for dentists. I bet they don't sell as many dental drills as Oral-B sells toothbrushes, and yet they seem to be doing fine (unless someone knows something I don't?)

There is still plenty of money to be made from professional cameras, from mirrorless to shoulder cams. The market has never been so big, what with Youtubers and all. Not to mention that there are about 2 billion more people in the world than there were a few decades ago. And the proportion of customers is bigger too. Countries that used to be labelled "third world", who weren't your customers at all, have developed into societies where people have money to buy luxury goods like cameras (Brazil, India, etc.)

And I'm still rooting for someone like Ikonoskop, AJA, or Digital Bolex to try again. Come on, it's easier than ever. You can use a nice CMOS from Sony (preferably global shutter) and record RAW to SDExpress. You don't have to invent your own media anymore.
 
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combatentropy said:
. There are plenty of companies, in a variety of fields, who make a healthy living making things only for a narrow slice of the population, usually professionals of some sort:
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A "healthy living" is a relative term. Big companies are allergic to shrinking (every business is). Who knows if they can sustain their operation if they decrease production and start to lose economies of scale. It could be a death spiral. Especially since their customer base will only buy if they have faith that the company will stick around and keep cranking out pro products

Blackmagic is interesting as a small camera company. I wonder what their sales volume is. But now they're going public, presumably as part of a strategy to scale up and increase volume
 
ahalpert said:
... Interesting that Nikon going for "pro-hobby" which is sort of a contradiction in terms. Anyway, I dont see why hobbyists don't want to buy the same cameras that pros do. What does a pro-hobby offering look like. (Maybe spurts of 8K RAW video actually since it's not so useful for pros but you can do something with it. That definitely seems like a hobbyist-friendly feature come to think of it)
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I read it as a "pro AND hobby" rather than half-pro/half-hobby, i.e., Nikon wants to concentrate on the mid-to-high end models, which would range from Z6 to Z8 and/or Z9 (which has been bandied about but not yet released). The problem with doing the high end photography only is that it's a very small portion of the market and that is contested by Sony and Canon. And Nikon is allotted a slot similar to Olympus. Which didn't work too well for Olympus and isn't likely to work well for Nikon either.

combatentropy said:
There is still plenty of money to be made from professional cameras, from mirrorless to shoulder cams. The market has never been so big, what with Youtubers and all. No one is surprised that point-and-shoot cameras are dead, and few people lament them. But if that means you can't stay in business, well that just don't make no sense....
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Culturally, it's very difficult for the Japanese to shed their logistical/corporate tail. Nikon wants to cut half a bil from its fixed costs, which might mean that all it's got left is rebadged Sony product with a Z-mount. And that isn't going anywhere.

Nikkei quotes the same line about the competition being the enemy but cartel is essentially central planning, which is not responsive to a market economy.
 
Funny that they mention the 4/3 sensor as being something to leverage when it looks like Panasonic may end up ditching it for something larger. Not much going on in the Panny GH line right now, but work seems to be happening in the S line. Full frame, APS-c/h, MFT who knows but full frame is gaining popularity with everyone but point and shoot right now, and APS is deemed "lowly" even though Fuji seems to be doing really well with it.
 
Fuji is ding well with APS-C because there's scarcely any competition there.

Panasonic said that GH-6 is "being worked on" but, meanwhile, Sigma is disappointed with the L-mount speed of adaption (aka sales figures).

And, to sum up the sad state of the whole industry, Tamron has decided to shut down its factory for the time being. They're blaming Covid. They should be blaming the cartel.
 
According to Nikkei, Panasonic might restructure its camera business. Off hints given in interviews, they might get into co-development. Of course, they've been buying sensors from Sony for a long time already.

Sigma's CEO says that he expects the unit sales to bottom out at the old analog/film days of roughly four million units annually. He didn't mention that the old analog cameras did not have to compete with smartphones.
 

So, a couple of weeks ago, Canon announced a 1/3rd" 12 MPX, 100M-400mm (FF equivalent) PowerShot Zoom. So far, it's selling in Japan only for about $300. And the funny thing is that Canon went onto the Kickstarter to fund it.

https://petapixel.com/2020/09/14/canon-unveils-the-powershot-zoom-a-strange-monocular-camera/

Now, sub a 12 MPX sensor for something in the 40 MPX neighborhood, which have long been available on smartphones and don't cost much more (camera modules of that quality are sold for around $20), and Canon might have a hit on its hands.
 
DLD said:
Sigma's CEO says that he expects the unit sales to bottom out at the old analog/film days of roughly four million units annually. He didn't mention that the old analog cameras did not have to compete with smartphones.
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I think they've known or been planning for this for a long time, and that is why they delayed several features that could have been available ages ago. They've always known that sales would return to pre digital times (or worse, depending how cellphones advance).

But to me, this should have been a reason for them to not cripple or hold back. just technology moves so much faster, there is always something worth upgrading for.

Idk, 2020 represents finally mirrorless has hit a certain baseline type of bare minimum specs, after a decade of crippling beyond sanity, to now kind of sort of looking like a viable film replacement.
 
The Japanese made the industry into a cartel some time after Kodak's bankruptcy and exit out of the photo-video manufacturing in 2012. Kodak wasn't very competitive on the ILC's but could still offer tangible competition on general value. The cartel clearly thought that they could guide the market toward a long term survival and a reasonable financial sustainability but missed out on three technological developments - multi-camera modules, the periscope zooms and the high resolution sensors for smartphones. A combination of the three knocked out the low-to-medium price ILC's off the store shelves, thereby destroying the ability to spread the overhead and the R&D over the tens of millions of units sold.

Now, Olympus is out, Pentax is de facto out and Nikon and Panasonic are teetering on the edge.

And then there were two.
 
DLD said:
The Japanese made the industry into a cartel some time after Kodak's bankruptcy and exit out of the photo-video manufacturing in 2012. Kodak wasn't very competitive on the ILC's but could still offer tangible competition on general value. The cartel clearly thought that they could guide the market toward a long term survival and a reasonable financial sustainability but missed out on three technological developments - multi-camera modules, the periscope zooms and the high resolution sensors for smartphones. A combination of the three knocked out the low-to-medium price ILC's off the store shelves, thereby destroying the ability to spread the overhead and the R&D over the tens of millions of units sold.

Now, Olympus is out, Pentax is de facto out and Nikon and Panasonic are teetering on the edge.

And then there were two.
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Just two competitors is almost worse than a cartel
 
James0b57 said:
Just two competitors is almost worse than a cartel
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It is worse than a cartel. It's a duopoly. There's been talk of the Chinese entering the market with their Sharp branded 8K MFT camera but that's been two years in the making.

And, to give credit where it's due, a non-crippled R5 is a gigantic step forward in hybrids. And now there are rumors of a 75-90 MPX high end Canon already being out in the hands of the early testers. So, technology is trickling out, albeit slower and at higher price points than it should.
 
Side note : Gerald Undone has an "explanation" video out (it was live streamed a couple of days ago) ... about the relations with sponsors, the manufacturers, the paid trips, the free gear. It's his story and he's sticking to it.
 
So, after looking at the official announcement earlier this morning, to me it reads like it’s just moving things around on paper.

Tokyo, September 30, 2020 – Olympus Corporation (“Olympus”) today concluded a definitive agreement with Japan Industrial Partners Inc. (“JIP”) regarding the transfer of the Olympus Imaging business. Under the agreement, Olympus will transfer its Imaging business to a newly established wholly-owned subsidiary of Olympus (the "New Imaging Company"), through an absorption-type split. This is to be followed by transferring 95% of the shares of the New Imaging Company on January 1, 2021, to OJ Holdings, Ltd., a special purpose company established by JIP.
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I'd say this is paper shuffling. Their business strategy is anyone's guess. Mine would be that, at the moment, everyone's hoping for a strong rebound and JIP will try to sell the low end MFT cameras for as long as they can. The "high end" MFT business has likely reached the end of its road. Panasonic is in the same situation with MFT but has a bit of the L-mount biz left.

In the past few months, JIP defended its leftover ideas by bringing up what used to be Sony Vaio product line and proudly proclaiming that Vaio was still an ongoing concern. In response, I'd say that laptop sales aren't plummeting into an abyss.
 
DLD said:
I'd say this is paper shuffling. Their business strategy is anyone's guess. ...
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It's what you do with a dead division that nobody wants so you can get it off the books so it stops dragging down the rest of the company. Next month's headline will have other declining camera divisions joining the dead pool.
 
In terms of accounting, it looks better to dispose of the money losing operations in one felt swoop. Recognize the "extraordinary" losses and move on. The presumption is that JIP will be saddled with so little overhead and R&D expenses, it can make some money off the straight production run, as per unit sold, P/L is still in black. And they'll keep at it until it's in black no more.
 
Canon 4.16 million units
Nikon 1.73 million units
Sony 1.66 million units
FUJIFILM 500,000 units
Olympus 330,000 units
Other 280,000 units

Ouch. Where is Panasonic in that list? Think about how tough that makes it for Olympus and below. They have to cover the same distribution, marketing, and sales with 1/5 or less revenue. A difficult task.
 
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