Nikon – quo vadis?

The camera market is shrinking and so are revenues of companies in this field. Nikon, my favorite brand, is very good in managing this change – after all, they are profitable year after year.

But slowly I get the feeling that there must be more than micro-management to keep the company stable and the ship floating. Signs are on the wall that austerity alone doesn’t bring new customers. Some observations based on my own location in the middle of Europe (your mileage may vary, but I hear similar repots from other continents):

  • Nion Austria closes the only Nikon Servicepoint in the country so I will have to ship a broken camera to another country (Czech Republic), a major inconvenience
  • Nikon Austria no longer offers the “Nikon Photo School” for workshops/seminars – where will all the newcomers learn to shoot?
  • Nikon will not do a booth on Photokina 2020
  • A year after launching mirrorless Z6 / z7 cameras there still is no battery grip available (aren’t accessories like a grip where major profit is made?)
  • Ever heard about “Computational Photography”? Nowadays its all about software, not hardware! Big players like Apple, Google and Samsung pump massive amounts of money to bring new features to smartphones – I can’t see how comparatively small companies like Nikon, Canon Imaging and Sony Imaging will have the power to keep up with these developments – at least if they do R&D all alone.
  • Expensive disasters like Nikon 1, Nikon DL (never saw the light), Nikon Keymission (too little, too late).

Don’t get me wrong, this comes from a Nikon fan still buying expensive cameras and lenses from them. But I have raised eyebrows.

Speak Your Mind