Canikolypentasonic...

04 Gen 2014, 02:13

Da http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html

The bottom line is the bottom line. With no growth visible in the camera market, none of the Japanese camera companies can sustain their overbuilt structure and inventories, not even Canon or Nikon. They built for continued growth above 20%. Now they're paying the price.

I know Pentax folk are still mad at me for writing way back at the turn of the century that Pentax was dead in the water and non-viable. As it turned out, I was right. Hoya bought and stripped the company, then later sold the camera remains to Ricoh. If you add up all the losses Pentax made, all the costs of acquisitions, Pentax has no chance of ever making all that lost cash back up, even under perfect Ricoh guidance.

What we're really seeing is the Japanese business culture, where you can't really lay anyone off, you can't close down unprofitable businesses, and where banks arrange marriages to preserve entities. I don't know that this environment is long-term sustainable in a country that has over 200% to GDP debt, is trying to reinstate inflation in the market, and is actively devaluing its currency. Something's going to eventually give.

That said, short term we're not going to see any real changes, I think. It's business status quo in Japan at the moment, which means that money-losing businesses stay afloat by various propped-up means.

Canikolypentasonic...

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