alexanderkrohe wrote: > Serving only a niche market would certainly be not > profitable enough.
Niche markets usually allow higher gain per item, hence can be profitable, but not for a company the size of Pentax. A smaller company (Cosina, Leica, and so on) could fit a niche market. > OTOH by tradition Pentax has always > offered some niche market products such as the soft > lenses for 6x7 cameras, limited lenses, stereo > attachments and so on. As special items within a wider market, not as a business in its own. > Certainly they need mass-produced articles. But as any > other better camera producer they don't just sell > stand-alone products, they do sell camera systems > (including a range of cameras from high-end to basic > level). Will they support a full-range system in the > future ? A full-range system includes niche-products. OK, this is what you will do, if you were Pentax. This is also what I would have done in the past, if I was Pentax (a high end film SLR is not the niche product I'd market today). If Pentax was Pentax, as it is, they often did hard to explain moves, half-moves, contradicting moves. I'm trying to understand what Pentax will do (and could reasonably do), not what anybody within PDML think Pentax should do. > I don't have any background information about the > Pentax business, Me neither, currently. > but in my understanding a low-volume > niche- market would probably be more profitable for a > mid-sized company (such as Pentax) than for a large > company. A smaller company than Pentax will fit better. For Pentax, a niche market can only complement their main business. Now they are trying to re-build their main business, and all of their resources have to pursue that goal. At least, this is what I understand. Of course, I can be wrong. Dario Bonazza
