One of the things to consider is that the Japanese market is extremely condensed. All those people live in an area about the size of California. It makes distribution easier. It make for concentrated niche markets. Only now with the internet are dealers now beginning to be able to concentrate on niche markets in the US. Heretofor it was imposible for a local dealer to get enough sales to make it worth stocking limited market items. In Japan that is not necessarily so, witness the 4x5 magazine film fuji sells on the local market but does not export.
graywolf http://www.graywolfphoto.com "Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof" -----------------------------------
Sylwester Pietrzyk wrote:
frank theriault wrote on 05.04.05 1:56:
Japan is a county of 130,000,000 people. It's population is largely affluent. It's population seems to love the latest in high-tech gizmos, and I'm thinking that DSLR's are included therein.
That's true. What is interesting however, from what I've read - Japan is one of the countries where film is still very popular among advanced photographers. It has still a strong position for instance among wedding photographers. There are a lot of positive film lovers - proof in Fuji offer for Japan - Velvia 100 (not 100F) was there available about one year before UE and USA... And sales of expensive (over 2000 USD) Nikon F6 proofs it too.
Whatever place they are in the world camera market, they are a significant and important market. That Pentax is making a significant dent in that market is A Good Thing (as Martha Stewart would say).
Yes, it seems that Ds sales are exactly as expected by Pentax. This company was never serious contender for giants like Canon or Nikon, but it always had more or less fixed share on SLR/DSLR market. Let's hope they will be able to keep up with the forthcoming ~600 USD class Nikon D50...
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