where is nikon heading?

rocketman122

Senior Member
looking at the numbers I have to say that nikon is not in a good situation

just looking at their last quarterly revenue it paints a very worrying picture. the stock dropped 11% in one day and stock is the lowest in 4 years. and almost every quarter since then has been bearish.
this is not good at all.

Japanese Stocks Rise as Buyback Plans Lift Topix; Nikon Plunges - Bloomberg Business



nikon.jpgNikon-2015-financial-results.png

many people want a D300 replacement many D700 replacement. I think the D750 is a good D700 replacement, but I dont think the D7200 is the D300 replacement. I think theyre neglecting the DX lenses people want also.

3rd party also has a huge impact on their sales. economy is bad and many people are looking for alternatives to nikons high prices.
lenses from the 3rd party MFR have jumped. the sigma ART lenses are some of the best glass released for nikon lately. theyre built extremely well, perform amazingly, and the price is less than nikon equivalent. same with tamron.

whether its lenses grips flashes or batteries. I myself have 3 nikons flashes ive had for a few years, but have bought 6x 3rd party flashes and I dont think ill ever be buying a nikon flash again as theyre excellent. build/performance/price and for the $100 price, basically disposable. I paid $200 just to get the Sb900 flash bulb replaced. I could have bought two flashes for that price.

I think nikon is heading in bad direction and has its nose up a bit too high with its stubborn ways.
 

rocketman122

Senior Member
I dont know what canon trade under for their photo division. also sony. but I highly doubt their graph looks anywhere close to the worrying graph above of nikon. sales could be done for all of the them but stock and quarterly revenues dont look like nikons, im certain.
 

J-see

Senior Member
I fear we're into an old people's game when it comes to photography. Look around here; it isn't exactly swarmed by teenagers. It's the same elsewhere online.

What you see here is at play on the market. Cams and interchangeable lenses are large, clumsy and terrible unsexy. Give it another decade and we're all done. Mirrorless isn't going to save the day either. It's following the same trend of decline.

Here's something on Canon:

UPDATE 2-Canon Q1 profit drops as compact camera demand collapses | Reuters
 
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rocketman122

Senior Member
I fear we're into an old people's game when it comes to photography. Look around here; it isn't exactly swarmed by teenagers. It's the same elsewhere online.

What you see here is at play on the market. Cams and interchangeable lenses are large, clumsy and terrible unsexy. Give it another decade and we're all done. Mirrorless isn't going to save the day either. It's following the same trend of decline.

Here's something on Canon:

UPDATE 2-Canon Q1 profit drops as compact camera demand collapses | Reuters

haha ill give you that. the D4S is a sleek looking thing though. cameras are quite good today and I understand people not having to upgrade as quickly. same with computers. theyre quite good and can last a very long time between upgrades.

Im worried for nikon though. im with nikon. theyre just stuck in their own world. people want a D300 replacement and a fast WA zoom and what do they do? release dog cameras and selfie sticks.
 

J-see

Senior Member
What surprises me of Nikon is how alienated they are from their user-base. The last two firmware updates speak volumes. If you can't be arsed to even explain into detail what changes are done, you either no longer care or are clueless about the consumers of those products.

It's as if they're already catering to a generation of kids who simply click the download button without checking what they are actually downloading.
 

rocketman122

Senior Member
What surprises me of Nikon is how alienated they are from their user-base. The last two firmware updates speak volumes. If you can't be arsed to even explain into detail what changes are done, you either no longer care or are clueless about the consumers of those products.

It's as if they're already catering to a generation of kids who simply click the download button without checking what they are actually downloading.

yea, I saw that about the firmware too.
they dont seem to be catering to the veteran loyalists whove been with them for many years. selfie stick and dog camera is not something those who shot with film care about.
 

mikew_RIP

Senior Member
Nikon's attitude to there customer base has not changed,they have always felt we should buy what they give us and be thankful,its 45 years now since i bought my first Nikon,although i ventured in other directions at different times the main one was the OM 1 and 2 era,then it was only because of the advanced flash system,I still kept coming back.
Cant see me making any major move away now ime retired and have money invested in there gear.
 

rocketman122

Senior Member
yep so true. its what I sense as well. "youll be ok, you have enough gear so now well cater to others. youre not going anywhere (invested enough) so well turn our attention elsewhere"
 

cbay

Senior Member
Declining sales will most likely cause them to consolidate their "legacy" product line ups and the respective departments. The only bright side i can see out of this is the possibility of getting one or two great cameras that will replace many.
 

Blacktop

Senior Member
Lots of people can't afford brand new gear, so they/I are opting to go the refurbished/used route. The people that are selling the used gear to update, are not necessarily buying new gear either.
The only piece of new Nikon gear that I have ever bought, was my D3100 when I started out with DSLRs.
 

mikew_RIP

Senior Member
Declining sales will most likely cause them to consolidate their "legacy" product line ups and the respective departments. The only bright side i can see out of this is the possibility of getting one or two great cameras that will replace many.

I think we are more likley to get half hearted upgrades to try and swell the funds.
 

mikeh32217

Senior Member
I think a lot of it is the phone cameras, kids don't want to carry around a lot of gear when to there minds a phone takes as good a picture and they have it handy at all times.
Also as you say Nikon has alienated itself from it's users and think they know what's best for us. Well we're grown ups now and we know what we want and if they can't or won't provide it there's plenty of others that will.
 

Pretzel

Senior Member
I think a lot of it is the phone cameras, kids don't want to carry around a lot of gear when to there minds a phone takes as good a picture and they have it handy at all times.
Also as you say Nikon has alienated itself from it's users and think they know what's best for us. Well we're grown ups now and we know what we want and if they can't or won't provide it there's plenty of others that will.

I agree, to some extent. Smart phones w/ instagram filters...

In my recent photo classes though, I'm seeing a bit of youth though, as well as a LOT of younger folks involved in our local photography LifeGroup from church. There are still some that are seeing that better equipment can get a better shot, but it's not as many as before to be sure.

I firmly believe that with some of the recent changes, the big 3 are finally starting to realize this, and with a continued profit trend like they've seen in recent times, more BIG changes will be made soon. The Fuji X-T1 type of camera will become more the norm, with features able to be changed/added with firmware instead of hardware, and more affordable high quality glass... I think we're DSLR users on the verge of seeing a new era in photography soon, IMO. Betting Nikon is right in the middle of it, though perhaps a step behind the leading edge for a bit.
 

Woodyg3

Senior Member
Contributor
Good topic, Rocketman. It's hard for someone like me, who has been shooting SLRs since I was a teenager (don't ask how long ago) to imagine that people are happy with their crummy little cell phone cameras. Just as I don't see how ear buds and an MP3 player are a reasonable replacement for a nice Hi-Fi system. I imagine Nikon makes a good deal more profit from their point and shoot cameras than from the DSLRs. I wonder if they can justify putting very much R&D money into the DSLR market any more?
 

J-see

Senior Member
I wonder how many of all shots taken surface elsewhere but the internet?

There's some printing going on but besides that, I bet 80-90% of all shots taken are purely for online sharing. Which is probably why traditional shooting (DSLR, mirrorless) can't compete with phone-shooting. Dynamic range, 36Mpix, IQ and all that is not so important if you always share shots the size of a quarter. You don't need much resolution to downscale an average shot into a reasonable one.

The majority of people taking shots don't care about everything we're always bothered about. They snap a picture which has the lifespan of an online moment and during that moment, they themselves have already moved to the next.
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
I think a lot of it is the phone cameras, kids don't want to carry around a lot of gear when to there minds a phone takes as good a picture and they have it handy at all times.

My young adult daughter is proof of that. It's more important to just capture the memory than it is to capture the image. When she wants a great image she comes to me, otherwise the phone/camera works great.
 
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