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 p.59 #13 · Nikon unveils the highly anticipated Z8 camera! | |
https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/573195
https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/573199
Several interacting factors must explain the how and why of the dynamics of the Japanese market share. We common folk can only guess at these at best. The real factors are known only to executives within Nikon and the other Japanese camera companies – which are all interknitted in cross licences and shared products (eg Hikari Glass).
Both Toyo Kezai articles noted Nikon has been introducing mirrorless cameras since 2011, but stopped new mirrorless products after 2015. 2015 was the year Nikon announced their restructuring. In light of R&D lead in overheads, they must have decided to switch priority to their already planned Z System to be ready 3 years later. It’s is strange the Nikon Executive did not even mention why and how Nikon timed out its DSLR production, and ramped up its Z Line. It, however, is understandable (this being secretive Nikon), why he kept silent about the real story of the Z System R&D – especially the years invested in its development prior to 2018.
However one looks back in recent history, the F-Mount System peaked in excellence with the D5, D500 in 2016, D850 and 105 f1.4E in 2017, and the 180-400mm f/4 TC soon after. Nevertheless, the release of new DSLRs also dropped off after 2018 – we only got only the low volume D6 and D780. The preceding years to 2018 were successful for mid-range to Pro DSLRs: the flagships, D750, D850 and other models that sold well and sold F-Mount lenses.
The D850 has been one of Nikon’s top sellers that pioneered Nikon’s focus on the Pro/Hobbyist market. It’s likely the Z8 is inheriting this role.
The D780 is the best hybrid DSLR-MILC ever. It is ideal for the Nikonian invested in their F-mount glass. It Is interesting Nikon had decided NOT to upgrade its D850. A D880/d860 was widely hoped for, judging from forum chatter. Hypothetical speculation…but a D880 with the best of the Z7 Mirrorless and Sensor with D6 Autofocus would have kept many happy campers in the F System (i.e. reticent to buy Mirrorless)! I agree 100% with Thom Hogan that the D6 is Nikon’s best DSLR ever made. The quality of its AF has to be learned and experienced to be believed. In challenging situations it outperforms any Mirrorless – as judged by the Z9. Its lowlight Image Quality remains an industry standard.
It was the crash in the prior high volume sales of entry-level DSLRs that hit Nikon’s earnings over 2019/2020 so hard. Shutting down this industry must have been the primary cause of the slump in the pandemic year - "In April (Nikon's sales), the number of interchangeable lens cameras sold decreased by 80% compared to the same month of the previous year, and the first quarter (April to June 2020) was really tough."
Nikon's Restructure was announced publicly in 2015 – so this must have been preceded by months in meetings and re-strategizing. Apparently, one major reason was to respond to the spread of smartphones, when the digital camera market slumped under 1/10 of its peak. It would have required consolidated parallel progress in R&D with forward planning of production of Z Products.
To conclude…. the primary cause of Nikon's 2019-2020 deficits was the loss of the consumer DSLR sales and writing off inventory and factories. Only Nikon knows how and why they timed the reduction of their entry DSLR production while timing their planned launch of the Z System in mid-2018. Possibly, Nikon management ran the entry DSLR production to the bitter end before closing shop with losses of those factories using older methods – so 2019 not 2014 or 2015.
1bwana1 wrote:
Nikon didn't push back because they were not in a position to do so. The quoted revisionist view of how Nikon entered the mirrorless market with a strategic plan dating years prior to 2018 flies in the face of how the market actually developed, and the late entry of Nikon into the mirrorless market. This history is not speculative, but comes directly from the mouths of both Nikon and Sony executives who were responsible for their company's mirrorless strategies. The mistakes by Nikon in getting on board with mirrorless had dire consequences for Nikon. It cost them a leading position in the industry, driving their market share in mirrorless (the only growth market in cameras) to 5th place at 7.5%. It also cost them their primary home County manufacturing base. Pretty much all off shore now. Nikon still suffers badly from this mistake. Nikon's initial FF mirrorless offerings the Z6/7 cameras were an uncompetitive, reputation damaging, disaster. They rightfully underperformed in the market as admitted by Nikon's CEO. Currently Nikon still has only one competitive camera in the market (I said competitive, not good/bad cameras) , and sells it in two form factors. This one camera, two form factor strategy is partly a result of Nikon's inability to find a second source for a stacked sensor. Note that the success of this camera is to a large extent being driven by built up demand by existing Nikon users who have been waiting for a competitive Nikon mirrorless camera, not by new Nikon users. Nikon will need to broaden this success if they hope to be a market share leader again one day. Still, as of this moment Nikon is playing good game of catch-up, and will be for a few more years.
As recently as 2021 Nikon senior management acknowledged the mistakes that it made in recognizing the true potential of the mirrorless camera architecture. He is a quote from Mr Ikegami.
Ikegami, in an interview with Toyo Keizai, says that Nikon’s poor showing can be directly tied to its slow transition to mirrorless. While Sony has experienced nothing but huge growth, Nikon was too late to the game.
“I wasn’t afraid of conflict (with SLR cameras), but rather I wasn’t looking at the market calmly and objectively,” he says, translated from Japanese. “I was most concerned about how much the performance of the electronic viewfinder (EVF) can be improved, and the number of shots can be increased.”
Ikegami says that he was unconvinced that mirrorless cameras would be able to compete with the number of photos per battery that DSLRs could manage, saying that the 500 photos a mirrorless camera could capture did not look favorable compared to a DSLR’s 1000 shots.
“I was wondering if it would be accepted by… professionals and high amateurs,” he says.
What I find most amazing is that it seems Sony may have fostered just such a view from Nikon, and Canon on purpose. Sony's Mr Ishizuka said that Sony had solved the issues Mr Ikegami mentioned, plus had the stacked sensors ready for quite some time before releasing them in products. Sony delayed exposing these for two reasons. First, to give Sony the chance to develop a fully competitive lens lineup so that when the bodies were released the customers could maximize value and the mirrorless ecosystem would compete favorably with the existing manufacturers. Second to keep the management at competitors from taking mirrorless seriously and investing in developing mirrorless systems. In Nikons case it appears from Mr Ikeami's remarks that this is exactly what happened. Sony has a long term vision of being number 1 in AV content creation tools, and seems to be executing in amazing ways. One thing I didn't realize is that as of today 48% of Sony's camera bushiness (not video camera business) is from cameras targeted to sell to the content/creator vlogger market. Nikon, and Canon haven't even gotten around to addressing this market in a serious way yet.
Mr Ishizuka has recently published a book on his time with Sony. I haven't found an English version to read yet. But here is a small bit of what he had to say about the sandbagging mirrorless issue.
Ishizuka said in the recent interview that part of Sony’s mirrorless strategy was to catch DSLR manufacturers off guard by getting them to think that mirrorless development was “not a big deal.”
“I wanted them to think, ‘Sony still has a long way to go,'” Ishizuka said. “I hoped that the common sentiment in the world of professionals and advanced amateurs, mirrorless cameras are no match for digital single-lens reflex cameras would be maintained until we were ready for our reversal.”
All of this is not to say that a certain amount of luck and favorable timing was not a big part of Sony's success in the camera market. It surely must have been. This is all very interesting to me, and one day would make a great business case study for someone's Masters or PHD paper.
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