KM going to reduce their camera business?

[tmc17479]

http://www.photosharp.com.tw/article/news.asp?Code=20040319000182

From the article, its seems that KM originally wanted to expand their DC market share but since the competition is getting too great and the prices drop too much. Now they are concentrating on lens and dvd components for higher profit returns.

 

[iceberg]

cannot open link :dunno:

 

[photosonic]

[URL=http://www.photosharp.com.tw/article/news.asp?Code=20040319000182]http://www.photosharp.com.tw/article/news.asp?Code=20040319000182[/URL]


try the link again

 

[iceberg]

got it

 

[The_Cheat]

Oh no! So does it mean that 7D would not be released? :dunno:

 

[TME]

I dun think KM will let go of the camera business.... it's lucrative.... and besides it's a core business of the Minolta brand.... letting it go would not make business sense at all....why merge in the first place.... mergers are meant to leverage on strengths of each company that is brought to the merged company and reduce duplication and competition in the same areas...

 

[The_Cheat]

They might not want to let go of the digicam market, especially those consumer range ones, which are real money-spinner for each and every camera manufacturer. However, this news may indicate that KM might not want to risk doing all the research and development on releasing DSLRs, which might not necessarily yield guranteed success.

 

[deslim27]

I read this news a few weeks ago.

http://www.photographyblog.com/comments.php?id=P2130_0_1_0

"While digital cameras are in a period of growth, price reduction and competition are accelerating," Konica Minolta President Fumio Iwai said when he released his company's medium-term business plan at a press conference..

IMO, they are referring to those smaller P&S camera market, there are just too many competitors having similar products, and even the manufacturers produced 'overlapping' products to flood the market. The profit margin can be very tiny to ensure competitiveness.

Convention Camera Players
- Canon, Contax, Minolta, Kyocera, Lecia, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Ricoh.

Photo Related Players
- Fujifilm, Kodak

Consumer Electronic Players
- Casio, JVC, Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, Sanyo, Toshiba

IT Product Players,
- HP, Dell, Gateway

Also, many others OEM/Generic brands players.

 

[TME]

Hmm.... well it looks like the DSLR market is still lucrative.... but I think we'll see a consolidation of the P&S market soon.... most poeple have at least a 3.2MP camera now and that's pretty good enough for anything from 3R to 8R.... so I dun think anyone is going to upgrade soon... unless there are major sensor technological breakthorughs soon...

 

[The_Cheat]

So any follow-up to this news? Is KM gonna tone down on their consumer cams R&D, prosumer cams R&D or DSLR R&D?

 

[TME]

So any follow-up to this news? Is KM gonna tone down on their consumer cams R&D, prosumer cams R&D or DSLR R&D?

Just rumours as always.....