Canon rush to reassure investors as camera profits plunge 64%

[Andrew Reid]

Maybe they should have listened to EOSHD earlier!

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[abehalpert]

It's sad, because the Canon "look" remains my favorite. But I think they rested on those laurels too long.

[Mako Sports]

F

[Andrew Reid]

This will be a wake up call.

Canon going to be back on form in the not-to-distant future.

It needed to happen really... The longer they had it easy, the more complacent they became.

[mkabi]

You know what's really sad... It's not the Canon brand itself it's the little people in this forum (some of other forums) and especially Canon rumors....

People kept saying Canon is doomed...

To most respect, they aren't... although, it's blatantly obvious that they may be... But they are not... Cause they are just positioning themselves to just plain move out of the segment altogether. 

Which, would make their gear relatively like the NX1... Samsung isn’t doomed, but those that believed in them... are left stranded. If you are reading this... and you are reading this now... start jumping ship!!!

[webrunner5]

Get real, Canon Doomed themselves. You can't be 4 years behind in Tech or more and survive in this balls to the wall market. Who gives a damn about loyalty for a brand. People want up to date freaking results from Anyone that will give it for less money than the next guy. This is 2019, not 10 years ago.

[thebrothersthre3]

Good this will force their hand.

[webrunner5]

2 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

Good this will force their hand.

I don't think they have the advanced Tech to pull it off.

[Kisaha]

The funny thing is that people here still believe that consumers are buying whatever Canon throwing at them.

Maybe 5 years ago when hordes of amateurs were buying cameras, but now the customers are more informed, better image educated and the competition much harder.

The Canon line up right now seems like the shop from Friday the 13th, every camera a terrifying story..

[webrunner5]

Sony said they would be number one in 2020 and hell they may be right. Gulp. Even their Printer Division has had to have taken a big hit, especially high end Photo printers. I literally threw away in the garbage my Canon Pro-100 printer. It was a Piece of shit. You couldn't give one away on eBay, cost more to ship the 42 pound turd than you could get for one.

A 500 Dollar boat anchor. NEVER again a Canon printer. Who even prints in this day and age anymore. Very few I bet. The average person goes to Wal Mart, UPS to do that.

[drm]

This happens to many big market leaders when the market changes. They try to protect their old business, rather than jumping in on the new opportunity. The list of times where this has happened is truly massive: IBM - PCs, Microsoft - anyone remember Windows Mobile????, the list goes on and on.

Canon's imaging business (and everyone else's) is being eaten by cell phone cameras. Cell phone imaging systems are rapidly improving and are even doing things that the legacy cameras can't do, like allowing people to produce live video & computational imaging. The cell phone cameras are going to continue to improve over time. SLR type cameras will hang around because there are people who care about image quality, but the camera market will be a tiny fraction of its former size. All but the most dedicated will just use their mobile device. I would hate to have my bonus tied to the point and shoot camera market in the future...

[webrunner5]

Heck not only P&S cameras but entry level DSLR, and entry level Mirrorless cameras to boot. Even the 1" sensor sized ones.

[PolarStarArts]

Well, this is the end result of Canon not making the cameras people want at prices they can afford. Canon's strategy has always been to market lenses with the idea of using cameras to try to lock people into their lens ecosystem, but the cameras are crippled in terms of capabilities in an effort to protect their upscale cameras and lenses - such as their Cinema EOS line, for example, if video is your thing.

The problem with this kind of strategy is that you end up cutting off your nose to spite your face by jacking up the price of admission to certain capabilities to the point where only a few can enter. It may be initially profitable, and you may be able to run the company for a while that way, but it eventually catches up with you. Canon have not only rested on their laurels and refused to innovate, they've also tried hanging on far too long to their existing lens ecosystem as a way to remain profitable.

Another big problem that Canon have is excessive segmentation. They have too many cameras chasing too few consumer dollars and constantly short customers on features in hopes they'll stump up for the more expensive model one or two levels up. This tells me Canon are somewhat out of touch with the state of the global economy, which tanked in 2008 and still hasn't fully recovered.

Mind you, car makers do the same thing, but they realize that only 5 - 10 % of their market can afford to buy their upper-tier versions of their basic product. They don't position their cars as a "we have a really crappy base model that has only a manual transmission and no air conditioning and if you want better than that, you have to pay Cadillac prices" kind of proposition. Most car dealers won't actually sell the stripper models, they just use them as bait to get less well-heeled customers on the dealership floor. Those customers end up opting for something a little better than base and find that their finance payments are maybe $20 -$50 per month more than the base model anyway.

In short, Canon's camera line-up and marketing strategy is downright diffused and severely confused.

Blaming their problems on smart phones is a cop-out. What if Canon made a smartphone that incorporated camera technology that beat out every other smartphone maker's cameras by a wide margin? And concentrated on marketing it to the low-end crowd that don't have a really serious interest in photography, but would have bought a point-and-shoot instead back in the days when smartphone cameras weren't so good? What I'm getting at here is that what the world wants is a good, modern-day equivalent to the Brownie camera or the Kodak Instamatic.

Make it good, make it cheap, sell a bazillion of 'em. As the technology improves, camera users that have a more serious interest in photography may be interested in a more advanced but still reasonably-priced model.

But I digress.

If I could suggest how Canon could solve its problems, here's what I would recommend:

• Ditch the digital SLRs, that ship has sailed; people want mirrorless cameras that outperform DSLRs and have none of their drawbacks.
• Make one consumer-grade camcorder that does 4K, one semi-pro model that does the same thing, and one pro model. Price them at $1000, $1500 and $3500 ~ 4000.
• Start making the whole range of mirrorless lenses, from wide-angle all the way to extreme telephoto, so people don't have to screw with adapters and get, at best, mixed results.
• Make the lenses a common system that fits both APS-C and full-frame cameras; this will simplify manufacturing and cut costs.
• Make one really good APS-C stills camera that can also do 4K video with no crop. Price the body out at $1K and offer a full range of good lenses retailing for between $500 and $750.
• Stop incrementalizing your cameras by offering more expensive models that offer only a few extra features.
• Ditch the XC10, XC15 hybrid cameras. While an interesting experiment, nobody buys these cameras, not even the photojournalists/videographers they're aimed at.
• Ditch the EOS RP. It's so crippled that it's an embarrassment. Knowledgeable consumers don't like feeling like they have to make a Faustian bargain just to get a full-frame camera despite not having the kind of money camera makers want them to sink into a full-frame camera system.
• Stop worrying about having your upper-end cameras and EOS Cinema cameras and lenses cannibalized by cheaper cameras that perform nearly as well. Pro cinematographers don't want low-end or even mid-range cameras and lenses. They want proper, fully professional cameras that can accept lenses made by Arri and other pro lens makers.

Seriously, the craziness I see in the photo equipment market is making me long for the days of the 35mm SLR, when everything was simple. For instance, Canon made the AT-1, AE-1, AV-1 and A-1 cameras starting back in the mid-1970s. There was just one lens system that would fit all of these cameras: the FD mount. There was no segmentation where you had a camera that accepted a small lens like the APS-C mirrorless lens of today, and another camera that would accept a bigger lens with a different mount.  Their models were set out in a linear, logical fashion and it made sense. And you could do pro work with any of these cameras save for the AV-1 maybe, and the FD-mount lenses that they accepted.

 

 

 

[drm]

21 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Even the 1" sensor sized ones.

I noticed that even the action camera market is dropping in price with the Hero 7 now around $399. Then Sony brings out the new RX 100 VII @ $1200...what the hell were they thinking with a 1" sensor point and shoot camera at that price? I just noticed the Nikon Z6 w/ 24-70 lens is selling for $1799. I get the quality of the RX 100, but how big is that market? That market/price point can't have more than a couple of years left. Sony is trending up, but the market is getting smaller.

 

[webrunner5]

Yeah the  RX 100 VII is stupid money in this day and age for what it is. It is a good camera don't get me wrong. For 799 maybe, 1200, insane money for it now.

[drm]

6 minutes ago, PolarStarArts said:

What if Canon made a smartphone that incorporated camera technology that beat out every other smartphone maker's cameras by a wide margin?

Yep. That was my point. Canon could have made a big difference, but they chose not to in order to protect their lens/legacy business, like Intel, Kodak and countless other companies before. Now, you have the cell phone companies innovating in the photography space because that gives them bragging rights, which helps them sell more phones. The computational imaging stuff that they are working on is amazing (like Google's low light stuff).

You know that it is serious when Canon is basically warning investors that they are going to get out of the camera space and focus on more profitable areas.

[PolarStarArts]

1 hour ago, webrunner5 said:

Sony said they would be number one in 2020 and hell they may be right. Gulp. Even their Printer Division has had to have taken a big hit, especially high end Photo printers. I literally threw away in the garbage my Canon Pro-100 printer. It was a Piece of shit. You couldn't give one away on eBay, cost more to ship the 42 pound turd than you could get for one.

A 500 Dollar boat anchor. NEVER again a Canon printer. Who even prints in this day and age anymore. Very few I bet. The average person goes to Wal Mart, UPS to do that.

I have a cheap Canon inkjet printer. It has a built-in scanner with a feeder. I never use it to print, just to scan. The ink is too costly and it's a cost I can't justify when I only rarely need to print in colour. Anything else I really have to print, gets printed on a cheap HP 1102w monochrome laser printer that I picked up on sale for $100.00.

I go paperless whenever I can. If I have to print in colour, I take the job to Staples, where I can get it printed for less than it would cost to do on my inkjet printer.

[webrunner5]

Yeah the color ink cartridges now cost more than the damn printer at times. Cheaper to throw the printer away and buy a new one on sale. Crazy world.

[PolarStarArts]

1 minute ago, drm said:

You know that it is serious when Canon is basically warning investors that they are going to get out of the camera space and focus on more profitable areas.

They don't need to exit the camera space, they just need to smarten up and make cameras that people want at prices they can afford. I realize they already do this to a certain extent with their low-end digital SLRs that are relatively cheap and appeal to middle-class mums and dads, but they need to innovate and appeal to more serious photographers as well, without trying to pull out every nickel they have in their pockets.

I sense that Panasonic are smelling blood in the water as a result of Canon's woes. Why else would they bring out a professional full-frame camera and lens system out of the blue when they've had all their eggs in the Micro Four-Thirds basket for nearly a decade now? Even Sony are stepping up their full-frame game with the release of their A7R Mk IV camera that has a 61MP sensor.

Both Panasonic and Sony appear poised to move into spaces where Canon are failing to innovate. They will profit hugely if Canon stop making cameras and lenses.

I suspect that Fuji aren't far behind in this area either and may well release a FF camera too after they've had a chance to assess the sales of their latest medium-format release, the GFX-100.

 

[drm]

3 minutes ago, PolarStarArts said:

I suspect that Fuji aren't far behind in this area either and may well release a FF camera too after they've had a chance to assess the sales of their latest medium-format release, the GFX-100

I would *love* to have a GFX-100. I won't buy it because it is $10k, but I would love to have one. At the other end, I have three BM Pocket4Ks. They are actually *very* good cameras at a silly low price. The lower-end price but high-spec gear is selling well and will likely do so for a good while.