>From what I understand Leica has operated at a loss or near break even for many years now. Part of their high costs are firstly their high cost of manufacturing. Secondly economies of scale play a major factor. For ever $2000 FF DSLR Canikon sells, they certainly profit less, but then they sell many, many more cameras than leica does. R&D costs money and those costs are offset to the consumer. Selling 10,000 cameras gives a lot more room for adjusting to thin profit margins, whereas selling only 1000 meticulously crafted and mostly handmade cameras means they aren't going to be cheap in any way. Also when you have the best lenses and a storied history you can charge whatever you want. A Rolls Royce is hardly worth $200,000 in comparison to say a Mercedes if you ask me, but to some it is. People with more money than sense. Look at Hasselblad. They've decided they can totally cash in on their name and took a page right out of leica's book. I don't know what sales figures are like, but it seems there is a market in horribly overpriced rebranded Panasonic cameras with a red dot.
On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 4:50 PM, Larry Colen <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 12:52:55PM -0700, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: >> Leica seem to be having no issues selling all manual focus Leica M bodies >> and lenses, Larry. They are the camera company with the highest growth rate >> in camera sales by unit volume and profitability since 2009. :-) > > I grant you that Leicas are good cameras, but they have one thing > going for them that no other brand has, the snob appeal that goes > with the red dot which says "I can spend $7,000 on a camera body, > and the GDP of a small country on lenses". Just as the majority > of Ferrari and Porsche owners have never taken a lap of a racetrack > at speed, I'm willing to bet that brand status has more to do with > the buying decisions of most Leica customers than their ability to > use the superior performance of the cameras. > > Seriously, compare the mechanical design of the M-9 versus the > Nikon D600. If they wanted to, they could could probably > build one to sell for $2,000, rather than $8,000, but that wouldn't > appeal to their niche market. A niche market which is undoubtably > far more profitable than a bunch of middle aged curmudgeons who > natter on endlessly about cormorants, puns and aperture simulators. > > >> >> Godfrey >> >> >> > On Sep 26, 2013, at 12:11 PM, Larry Colen <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > Because these days, to all intents and purposes you cannot sell a >> > camera that isn't auto everything. >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > -- > Larry Colen [email protected] http://red4est.com/lrc > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
