On 7/19/05 8:26 PM, "Tom C" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Exactly my point. I don't find a decrease in profits alarming, it's that, > combined with everything else, that's somewhat troubling. I'm not, nor do I > believe anyone is predicting imminent doom.
I do not think there is any doom and gloom scenario in the financial statement officially released today (it's in the Pentax Japan site). In fact, among "non-big 2" camera makers, Pentax is doing exceptionally better. Everybody is suffering from the collapse of the price of the P&S digicam, and Pentax is admitting it, even they predicted it at the beginning of the fiscal year, they said they misread the magnitude of the collapse, but so did everybody else. Oly were hit by this big time and KM did not fare any better. But the impact on Pentax appears to be much smaller than that to other two. Pentax already announced that they would be narrowing the number of P&S models (down to 3 or so IIRC, a far cry from the peak) and committed to the higher end DSLRs. Pentax is not like a mass producing company and does not need the volume as much as N/C do. Sort of like BMW as compared to GM/Toyota. So, they are very nimble in the rainy days and this is not even their first or worst rainy day. They went thru this many times in the past without being forced to make any drastic restructuring measures. OTOH, errors made by Minolta for example, left them with no choice but to merge with Konica, and this time with Sony (not a merge though). They do not even make their own lenses any more. I do not know what Pentax might be contemplating but they may be able to remain independent. There are a lot of large electronic makers wooing Pentax because of their lens making experience. Many digicam P&S use Pentax lens, many cellphone camera use theirs. If Pentax want or see the need for some sort of alliance with other makers, it won't be difficult for them to do so. Now on Sony/KM, a lot of people in Japan speculate that this is rather temporary, as the shrewd Sony are only looking at sharing the piece of DSLR pie without much investment in this particular sector. They can't be looking into the longer term future of the DSLR market. Rather than making a lot of investment in manufacturing DSLR, or in some other entities, the consensus is that Sony will have KM make DSLR as long as the market sustains, and may be even sell the product in two brands, KM and Sony. Once the booming market start tapering off, and made enough money, Sony might be out of it without much investment commitment. KM might know it but they needed the Sony's brand strength and the marketing ability. Also, if you know that Sony is the major shareholder of Tamron, can't you see the tactics of Sony? :-). Do you really think Sony would stay in the DSLR market for a long haul? Thay are NOT a camera maker (particularly DLRs). I do not think so. Sony only see the blip of money making opportunities for the next few to several years. In any case, I am sure Pentax is OK. If they see any real danger, I am sure they know how to survive, avoiding any painful death. Pentax have enough attractive things to other companies, and the image stabilization patent is not the only thing. Recently, one of their executives talked about Pentax's philosophy and they see themselves as an SLR maker, and wish to cultivate the "culture" that every single household uses DSLRs. For that, they patiently cultivated the foundation of the market by lower end models. Now people have a firmly implanted idea that Pentax produces excellent DSLRs. In fact, when people saw the success of *istD followed by *istDs, they were surprised, and Pentax is now counted as a strong contender in the DSLR game (at least one of our former members had a real doom and gloom theory that Pentax could not even produce a single DSLR for the real market :-). *istD/Ds now actually compete with 20D or RebelXT which no one ever imagined not too long ago. Now, Pentax have announced that they would start announcing high end models toward the next year with a good possibility that they finally incorporate the IS/AS. As much as we tease them, Pentax are obviously not stupid and know what has to be done in order to survive in this fierce competition. For example, I just cannot imagine that Pentax won't do anything on IS/AS when everybody else will have it sooner or later. That would be a suicide. Anyway, I do not see any doom's day scenario here. Just the interesting market place in the next 12 months. Just pull the stool and watch how it unfolds ;-). Cheers, Ken
