Is Nikon in trouble?

bike21

Lots of chatter about Nikon's recent announcement of huge losses and restructuring. They'll probably be fine, but I'm severely disappointed in the DL Series being canceled. Nikon led us on for a long time, wonder how long they've known the DL series wouldn't be? Guess I won't be coming back to Nikon after all.

https://petapixel.com/2017/02/14/nikon-stock-plummets-15-extraordinary-loss-bombshell/

ziggy53

Nikon is a pretty massive company, and they appear to be taking a proven course to help curb some of their losses. As a formidable competitor in all of their markets, I suspect it would be extremely premature to count them out of the photography market.

I do believe that Nikon reviewed the market for their prospective "DL" series cameras and made a business decision that the fixed-lens, 1" imager market (what Nikon calls the "premium compact cameras") was a poor direction to pursue at this time.

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Olympus also suffered losses and even subjected themselves to scandalous fraud charges, and yet they appear to be doing much better these days.

nytimes.com/2011/12/09/business/deep-roots-of-fraud-at-olympus.html

https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/japan-s-olympus-seeks-deals-and-redemption-after-2011-scandal

David_S85

Is Nikon in Trouble?

Yes, it so seems. That's sad, really. What they've done over all these decades has pushed the tech and the artform in so many ways. Sure hope they can pare the expenses and can gain strength again.

Richard

Maybe not as bad as the screaming headlines would suggest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uyJVCHDlzU

While there are certainly some problems in the camera product lines, the bulk of the losses come from the semiconductor lithography line of business.

Cygnus Studios

These Nikon meltdown stories have been talked about since spring of 2014. There seems to be some serious issues in some of the companies holdings, and they will certainly restructure and may even kill off some of these other projects, but I find it difficult to believe that the brand itself would go away.

Maybe they tried to grow into new industries too fast or maybe too slow, but this isn't the first time that Nikon's demise has been a story and I doubt it will be the last.

bike21

Yeah they'll probably be fine as I mentioned, but I'm going to hold a grudge over the DL Series for a bit. The fact they had such a promising camera that they couldn't bring to market doesn't bode well however.

Cygnus Studios

Looks like Nikon is still working on some interesting new things, including a medium format.

bike21

@Cygnus Studios said:
Looks like Nikon is still working on some interesting new things, including a medium format.

They are behind the curve, but for their sake let's hope they do well. My grudge will be lessened if they release a stellar update to the DL series but time will tell

Cygnus Studios

I'm the opposite, I wish that they would get off the pot and finally build a great medium format, preferably mirrorless.