Ali Shah wrote:
> Good news for Olympus.
>
> "In May and June, however, Olympus moved up to third, led by its E-410 model,
> which it claims is the world's "smallest, slimmest and lightest" digital SLR
> camera."
>
It's certainly nice to see Oly with really competitive models in the
volume segment of the market.
> THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
>
> Nikon Corp., buoyed by the popularity of its D40 model, sold more digital
> single-lens reflex cameras than rival Canon Inc. in the
> first half of 2007.
>
I suspect that these domestic, unit volume numbers have little to do
with anything for N and C but macho ( I don't know what the Japanese
term is.) bragging rights among the heads of these companies in the
world of Japanese business leaders.
The name of the survival game is still profits and ROI/ROE. It would be
much more informative in that area to see figures for gross monetary
sales worldwide, especially by category.
I know C has had some trouble reported with focus problems on the 1D
III, but I'd bet this is a really good year for the C camera operations
overall.
I've harped on this before... The really big profits are on models that
have paid off their design and start-up costs and continue to sell. The
lack of amortization costs and the sometimes astonishing economies of
scale from long, high volume production life turn those sorts of
products into money machines as long as they last.
In a market like DSLRs, one must, of course, keep up the innovation and
new models for long range survival. But a period like the one C has
going, where they have been selling high volume models in all major
niches without change for so long (For this market!) must be very
profitable.
So if you want to know one reason why C hasn't responded to the D40/40x,
combine high incremental profit with another tidbit from the article:
"Canon's popular EOS Kiss model, first introduced in 2003 and now in its third
generation, has been selling well."
400D - 8/06
30D - 2/06
5D - 8/05
1Ds II - 9/04
D40 - 11/06
D40x - 3/07
D80 - 8/06
D200 - 1/05
D2x - 6/06
One has to give kudos to N for turning a technological disadvantage into
a marketing advantage with the D40(x). They are so cheap, yet the
average sale will be higher than for other entry level DSLRs which can
use older AF lenses because a higher % are probably sold with and/or
soon buy new lenses. Poor C made a clean break with the move from FD to
EF mount, so all their FF AF lenses work on all their AF cameras, so
they can't create a lower priced, but slightly crippled, line as naturally.
Moose
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