OLYMPUS selling off camera division

It's no surprise Canon is #1 but the amount in comparison doesn't make much sense to me.

If those were 2020 numbers I would assume R5/6s were factored in, but 2019?...
 
Those were 2019 unit sales. Off old articles, full frame was around 10% of all units in the past but, in 2019, it was probably close to 30%. Sheer guess.

IMO, the photo-video industry will be completely wiped out by the periscope zooms. Even iPhone (13?) will supposedly have one in a year or so. They may not be equal of the ILC's but they will satisfy pretty much everyone else. First PZ's came out about a year and a half ago but now most Chinese (Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO) are licensing it from Samsung (which got it from purchasing the inventors Core Photonics for $160M two years ago). Samsung has it in most of its own models as well.
 
JIP released their plans for the future. The Olympus factory in Vietnam will continue manufacturing bodies. The lens plant in Nagano will close. They're looking to outsource that line. They might be looking at some other, non consumer photo-video, markets too.
 

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.

And a month later, it is out in the US for the same $300. The same 12 mpx sensor too.

 
It's a - dare I say it - perfect smartphone companion. It would be much better with a higher res sensor though.
 
Catching up on Nikon.

They're planning to lay off 2,000 globally, which amounts to 40% of their worldwide labor force.

They're also moving their camera/lens production from Japan to Thailand. LiDAR stays in Japan.

The corporate argument is that cameras are going to be the exclusive domain of the enthusiasts and the professionals, with presumably everyone else switching to smartphones. They gots some smart executives over at Nikon.
 
Catching up on Nikon.

They're planning to lay off 2,000 globally, which amounts to 40% of their worldwide labor force.

They're also moving their camera/lens production from Japan to Thailand. LiDAR stays in Japan.

The corporate argument is that cameras are going to be the exclusive domain of the enthusiasts and the professionals, with presumably everyone else switching to smartphones. They gots some smart executives over at Nikon.

Wow, how did they ever figure that out?
 
Olympus ended up writing off about half a Bill U$ in their final statement before offloading the imaging division. Obviously, that dumpster was used for everything and anything under the sun but still tells you the size of the mess Olympus was in.
 
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money.



A quote often attributed to Senator Everett Dirksen, but the Dirksen Center disagrees.
 
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