« Little Truths | Main | Open Mike: Real Stories »

Sunday, 17 February 2013

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

There are more people on earth entering middle class who can afford to buy camera and yes camera are basically cheaper than 20 years ago.

What's wrong here? Are the camera maker size is becoming to big to nurture themselves or the margin is simply too low to sustain?

I checked in at 12:05 EST and was disappointed; couldn't believe Mike would trick us. Then figured out that time zones are relevant here. The link worked well this morning and they had my next planned lens purchase in the list; it's ordered. Should arrive for my birthday :) These are not legacy lenses; most are current. Thanks for the "heads up."

Reading the article sited by hlinton, I noticed that they sold 7 million DSLR cameras and only 9.8 million lenses. This indicates to me that most people really don't understand why they bought a DSLR.

If anyone makes a camera phone that is deemed an adequate replacement for "a real camera" by the masses, our beloved camera industry will be in real trouble.

This would be welcome news in the UK, where Nikon UK have around a 35% margin. Although the 'race to the bottom' is the norm for pricing, UK shops are really - I mean really - struggling in the flood of so called grey imports: i.e. goods which avoid Customs and Excise duty, VAT. The government - this isn't a rant, just a simple statement of fact - nor the UK distributors of goods, particularly Canon and Nikon seem unable to do anything to clamp down on grey goods and are unsupportive of businesses who do everything as they should, i.e. pay taxes. I believe some distributors are even offering support for grey goods even though the purchase revenue hasn't been generated on their patch - very worrying.
This is a major concern for the UK high street which is in terminal decline. Are you in a similar position in the US, or are you tighter on what can be sold at foreign prices ? At present point of sale profit has slumped to close to zero and customers think the retailers are being 'funny'. No joke.
Regards, with what I wish was a happier comment,
Mark Walker.

Mike---do note that B&H's website does NOT reflect the new $100 off reduction on their listing for the Nikon AF-S 28mm f1.8G lens. It still shows "old" price ($697.) for USA version.
I assume this is merely inadvertent B&H error, because the other sale-related Nikon lenses that B&H lists do comply.
(And Adorama's site offers this same lens at the new $597. price.)
Hope B&H will correct this soon; I want to buy, and prefer to order there.

Perhaps a lot of people are not bothering to upgrade their DSLRs. People do not use them much so they enter the used market in competition with the new models. New buyers flock to the lower prices of the second hand market and this also includes lenses. Maybe the furious printing of Yen by the Japanese Government, like the US, will help to lower the yen value and prices? And lastly, there could be too many cameras chasing a limited market in a depressed worldwide economy. What's your opinion Mike with all of the global issues brought into consideration?

One of the first discussions I had in America was about the World War 2. I remember how appalled and amused I was when my opponent resorted the following argument, "Didn't you see that [...] movie???" By the way, he was a newspaper editor.

Another consideration: Japan has devalued the Yen recently, improving export competitiveness.

Worth noting (for a few of us) that with one exception, the lenses are all G type (no aperture ring).

McD wrote:
> Japan has devalued the Yen recently, improving export competitiveness.

Most developed economies — including Japan — don't apply restrictions to capital flows and to exchange rates.

Due to the huge volume of trades on the forex market, it's therefore next to impossible for such a country's central bank to meaningfully and sustainably alter the value of its currency, e.g. to "devalue" its currency.

The recent movement of the Japanese Yen appears more to be a reaction of the various forex market participants — e.g. hedge funds and currency speculators — adjusting their portfolio positions, as the political party that won the recent Japanese elections has been vocally criticizing the inability of the Bank of Japan to stem the plummeting of foreign currencies relative to the Yen since the Lehman bankruptcy and the 2008 financial crisis.

Five-year forex charts hint that the bloating of the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank's balance sheets following the quantitative easings and sovereign debt crises have led to a significant divergence since 2008 between the Yen and the currencies with artificially inflated money supplies like the Dollar, Euro, British Pound or Korean Won.

One consequence is that the prices of camera equipment from Japan have markedly increased in markets like the US and Europe since 2008, while Korean manufacturers like Samsung enjoyed a significant currency advantage.

The recent forex market movements notwithstanding, when one considers the shrinking Japanese economy and accompanying stagnation of money supply demand, it remains to be seen whether there are any effective measures Japan could take to steer the exchange rates towards the levels that were prevalent before the onset of the US and European financial and sovereign debt crises.


The comments to this entry are closed.

Portals




Stats


Blog powered by Typepad
Member since 06/2007