Herb wrote: >. DSLRs make > more profit, but there is going to be about a year to two year's time before > the entire market is saturated too, just like digital P&S, and then profit > margins are going to disappear as well.
[snip] > sensible business people are the ones that are saying what i have been > saying here. it's sensible business people that are saying how much longer > can Pentax continue to have an entire division lose money, to continue to > forecast losing money, and not do something drastic. snip] >. all but two of the > major Japanese traditional camera manufacturers lost money last year or > more. Nikon only made money last year after a couple of years of losing. > Canon hasn't had a year in a very long time where its camera division lost > money. Pentax are adressing this issue and will reduce the number of digital P&S to three models. After all, it is the P&S market that has bursted. They will make SLR's their main business (again); after all, thats where the profit is at present. Pentax losses are small compared to the competition. The company manages to stay indipendent when the competition don't or must seek partners. It is true that the DSLR market will be saturated pretty soon. But for who is that a problem? The current monopolists or someone with close to zero market share? Theren no way Canon and/or Nikon are going to keep their market share. If they do, it means that Pentax, KM and Olympus won't sell a single one of their coming higher-end bodies; not very realistic I'm afraid. I'm sure Canon and perhaps Nikon will keep the lions share of the market but in saturated market they not only face the prospect of lost market share, but also a slump in volume something that might hit profitability hard. For Pentax and KM, theres only one way, and thats up. So what if they don't prospect a profit in the imaging department the next three years? After all, three years is nothing in business and such losses are common for multi national companies. Pål
