zoetmb
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
|
Genes Home wrote:
Although I am a dedicated Nikon user, this thread, others like it on other sites, and the long-running comments by a large number of professional photographers who indicate that, even using NPS, they can't get the support and lenses they need.....simply continues to convince me that Nikon's photo division simply doesn't understand business and economics.
There is simply no reason for these lenses (500, 600, 800) to be "unavailable" to the purchasing public, especially once you consider the prices being charged for them.
Any first-year business student (a category of liberal arts I particularly detest) could spend a few days designing a simple data collection effort which would determine the expected annual sales of such a limited availability item and then set up a production program which would maximize delivery-to-sales points and generate some significant profit for the company.
Doing so seems to just not be in their business model.
Gene...Show more →
I don't think it's quite that simple. I think Nikon understands economics, but it appears they've made a conscious decision not to make big capital investments in expanding production capacity beyond natural organic growth (see below for sales #s), especially for lenses (although they have diverted some manufacturing from Japan to China for some lenses - the 105 macro is now manufactured in China, but was originally built in Japan). And lenses like the 600mm are a special case because I believe that they are manufactured by hand. Also, I think (but can't prove) that they're diverting product to the markets where the currency is strong against the Yen. The U.S. dollar has declined 30% against the Yen since 2007 so while the U.S. is still their biggest market, it doesn't always pay to sell product here, in spite of price increases.
When Nikon first entered the digital camera market in a big way, with the D70, their strategy was to go for market share. But about two years ago, with declining profits, they announced that they would give up market share in return for better margins. Because of the declining dollar against the Yen, it's actually been a balance: unit sales continually increase (4.2 million bodies in fiscal 2011 projected vs. 3.67 million in 2010 and 14 million lenses projected vs. 11.51 million in 2010), but because of more players in the market, market share has declined and earnings have also declined. Also, traditionally (and partially because Nikon has better compatibility with older lenses), Nikon sells fewer lenses per body than the industry average. So for lenses, while it certainly seems like Nikon can't keep lenses in stock, for fiscal 2011, they actually expect to deliver 10.6% more lenses to the market.
For the first half of fiscal 2011, Nikon's DSLR share was 29.8% (but it was 40.1% in fiscal 2008.) Nikon sold 1.55 lenses per body, but industry average is 1.71 lenses per body. Nikon's earnings (just for the photo division) was 7.9% of revenue. That compares with 14.3% in 2008, 6.7% in 2009 and 9.2% in 2010, although a lot of that decline is because of small margins at the low end of the lines, especially point-and-shoots.
Besides, how many $10,000 lenses do you think they can actually sell?
|
I didn't get the email.
- but if you want we could discuss it LMAO