Ricoh to acquire HOYA's PENTAX Imaging Systems Business

ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,156 moderator
edited July 4, 2011 in Cameras
From this announcement:

"Tokyo - July 1, 2011 - Ricoh Company, Ltd. (TSE: 7752; President & CEO: Shiro Kondo; hereinafter referred to as "Ricoh") and HOYA Corporation (TSE: 7741; President & CEO: Hiroshi Suzuki; hereinafter referred to as "HOYA") announced today that the two companies entered into a definitive agreement and concluded a contract regarding the acquisition of HOYA Corporation's PENTAX Imaging Systems Business (hereinafter referred to as "PENTAX Imaging System Business") by Ricoh (hereinafter referred to as "the Acquisition").

On completion of the Acquisition, Ricoh will begin to use the PENTAX brand name for some of its digital camera products, and HOYA will continue to use the PENTAX brand name for their endoscopes and other products.

Furthermore, with the Acquisition, both companies will cooperate with each other to increase the value of the PENTAX brand.

July 1, 2011
Ricoh Company, Ltd.
HOYA Corporation"
ziggy53
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums

Comments

  • cmasoncmason Registered Users Posts: 2,506 Major grins
    edited July 1, 2011
    Learn something new everyday: I had no idea that PENTAX was owned by Hoya
    Photos
  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,156 moderator
    edited July 1, 2011
    To put this another way, Ricoh just entered the dSLR market via the Pentax acquisition and brand.

    While this might seem unsettling to Pentax owners, Ricoh had been a long time SLR competitor to Pentax (ages ago) and, compared to Hoya, may be better prepared to expand the Pentax line of dSLRs.

    Some are predicting the end of the Pentax dSLRs with the acquisition, because Ricoh doesn't have a current dSLR lineup. I just don't think that will be true. I do think that where Ricoh and Pentax overlap, mostly in the P&S arena, there will be cuts in the line and mergers in design.
    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,156 moderator
    edited July 1, 2011
    I do wonder what will happen to Samsung and the (loose and already tenuous) Pentax-Samsung alliance? (Former Samsung dSLRs used a Pentax lens mount system and apparently the 2 brands had shared some other technologies.)
    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • InternautInternaut Registered Users Posts: 347 Major grins
    edited July 1, 2011
    ziggy53 wrote: »
    I do wonder what will happen to Samsung and the (loose and already tenuous) Pentax-Samsung alliance? (Former Samsung dSLRs used a Pentax lens mount system and apparently the 2 brands had shared some other technologies.)

    The Samsung alliance has been pretty much over for some time now. Samsung no longer makes DSLRs and Pentax now use the same Sony sensor (the one that wipes the floor with its A-PSC competition at the moment) as Nikon, in their DSLRs (still Samsung for compacts)?

    I think this is very good news for Pentax, its employees and its customers. Ricoh have good pedigree in the camera market and have just bought themselves a whole lot of expertise to expand with.
  • MarkRMarkR Registered Users Posts: 2,099 Major grins
    edited July 1, 2011
    Although initially unsettling, it's becoming clear (to me at least) that Ricoh bought Pentax for the brand, not necessarily for the patents, which is what Hoya was after. And that's good news for Pentax loyalists.

    I do wonder about the Tokina-Pentax alliance. Many of the great Pentax lenses are/were designed at least in part by Tokina. The Samsung alliance, as Internaut pointed out, is long dead.

    I'm also concerned that Pentax, which does not have much retail presence in North America, is joining with Ricoh, which also lacks a strong NA presence for cameras.

    We shall see!
  • insanefredinsanefred Registered Users Posts: 604 Major grins
    edited July 1, 2011
    Sounds to me that Pentax is being passed around like a cheap hooker. :cry
  • ThatCanonGuyThatCanonGuy Registered Users Posts: 1,778 Major grins
    edited July 1, 2011
    It'll be interesting to see the direction that Ricoh will tke Pentax... expand the 645D line? Start a new FF line? (I doubt it, because DA lenses are crop.) The Pentax K-5 is already a direct competitor to the Canon 7D and Nikon D300/D7000. The K-7 is somewhat of a competitor to those cameras as well.

    This acquisition is good news to me. Hoya wasn't running Pentax too well IMHO. What's more, Ricoh, with the GXR, has show they aren't afraid to do things differently. This is what the market needs. The GXR, while not as practical as DSLRs (the sensor is permanently attached to the lens module), is a stab at changing the market, instead of the same old copy-everyone-else stragegy we see in this market. If every camera maker were to make a product that's different from everyone else's, I think we'd have a lot more competition and a lot better cameras.

    I wonder if Ricoh likes the Q thing.
  • PhotoskipperPhotoskipper Registered Users Posts: 453 Major grins
    edited July 3, 2011
    Common scenario in business world. New market draws companies to rush in, expended fast then consolidated to just couple of main players. We see many cases in the passenger aircraft and vehicle manufacturers in the past decade.
    Kodak gone first, then Minolta, now Pentax, who's next?
    Stay with the key players, the leading brands with know-how and unique technology will never go wrong.
    Photoskipper
    flickr.com/photos/photoskipper/
  • MarkRMarkR Registered Users Posts: 2,099 Major grins
    edited July 3, 2011
    Photoskipper wrote: »
    Common scenario in business world. New market draws companies to rush in, expended fast then consolidated to just couple of main players. We see many cases in the passenger aircraft and vehicle manufacturers in the past decade.
    Kodak gone first, then Minolta, now Pentax, who's next?
    Stay with the key players, the leading brands with know-how and unique technology will never go wrong.

    Oh really?

    Having worked in a Novell/Wordperfect (the leading brands with the know-how and unique technology of the early 90's) environment, I think your plan might have a flaw ...
  • cmasoncmason Registered Users Posts: 2,506 Major grins
    edited July 3, 2011
    Photoskipper wrote: »
    Stay with the key players, the leading brands with know-how and unique technology will never go wrong.

    So I suppose I should have stayed with a Kodak DCS-1 rather than buying Canon EOS...afterall, Kodak was far and way the photography leader.

    And I should stay with Nokia, even though the upstart Apple seems to have some following in the phone market that Nokia has been the leader in until recently.

    GM, PanAm, Woolworths, etc etc all suggest that 'leading brands' do not protect from bad management, and lack of innovation.
    Photos
  • ThatCanonGuyThatCanonGuy Registered Users Posts: 1,778 Major grins
    edited July 3, 2011
    Pentax isn't dead yet. They just need to be turned around... we'll see if Ricoh can do that.
  • PhotoskipperPhotoskipper Registered Users Posts: 453 Major grins
    edited July 3, 2011
    cmason wrote: »
    So I suppose I should have stayed with a Kodak DCS-1 rather than buying Canon EOS...afterall, Kodak was far and way the photography leader.

    And I should stay with Nokia, even though the upstart Apple seems to have some following in the phone market that Nokia has been the leader in until recently.

    GM, PanAm, Woolworths, etc etc all suggest that 'leading brands' do not protect from bad management, and lack of innovation.

    Kodak was too in-love with their film technology and missed the opportunity of digital era even they had the first digital sensor. The first digital Kodak DSC DSLR was based on the Nikon body. Today, most of their digital cam were design and built by Chinon Industries in Japan. They did not own the technology by themselve.

    Anyway, the world is changing fast. The leader yesterday does not mean they can survive tomorrow. Every company has their own sad story behind the door. I had been working for the top 500 company for last 20 years. Just too much to learn from them.

    As the consumer, we just want to have the best product today and continuity of support for next couple years. Who know what's new next year. Mirrorless camera body may be the mainstream in near future.
    Photoskipper
    flickr.com/photos/photoskipper/
  • PhotoskipperPhotoskipper Registered Users Posts: 453 Major grins
    edited July 3, 2011
    MarkR wrote: »
    Oh really?

    Having worked in a Novell/Wordperfect (the leading brands with the know-how and unique technology of the early 90's) environment, I think your plan might have a flaw ...

    Hi Mark, You are right. There no plan is perfect even the WordPerfect was not perfect at all. I am not going into detail of the cases studies of each company. My statement was just the general view of ordinary consumers who wants the best product today and hope to have the support for the next couple years. We don't want to buy the camera today and go next door to get the warranty tomorrow.
    Photoskipper
    flickr.com/photos/photoskipper/
  • MarkRMarkR Registered Users Posts: 2,099 Major grins
    edited July 3, 2011
    On the other side of things, I bought my first Apple computer in ... 2003. By that time, Apple's "going out of business" sign had been up so long it had started to yellow and fade ... :lol
  • PhotoskipperPhotoskipper Registered Users Posts: 453 Major grins
    edited July 4, 2011
    MarkR wrote: »
    On the other side of things, I bought my first Apple computer in ... 2003. By that time, Apple's "going out of business" sign had been up so long it had started to yellow and fade ... :lol
    I got my old gray cube with 8" green and black monitor in 1984. It was very promising. I spent almost one month salary to get my first Ricoh SLR with additional Vivitar Long zoom lens in 1981. My friend gave us the Pentax P&S film camera for honeymoon inmid-80's. All those were consider second line of those days. Later found it all not worth to keep. Learnt from those mistakes and now I only stay with the "main-stream" - the big C, the PC and the Japanese carbowdown.gif.
    Photoskipper
    flickr.com/photos/photoskipper/
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