If you download the Sony Q1 financial report (.pdf) you will see that Sony is still loosing money (particularly in the TV business). But there is one good news. They are no writing Black results in the Imaging division. Sony writes:
“Sales increased 7.6% year-on-year (a 12% increase on a constant currency basis) to 193.8 billion yen (2,453 million U.S. dollars). This increase was primarily due to a significant increase in sales of interchangeable single lens cameras reflecting higher demand…”
That Sony is doing money with the NEX cameras isn’t a surprise for anyone. But they would do even better if they had an larger E-mount lens range. Anyway those results may will start again the DSLR/SLT versus Mirrorless discussion. Some of you think they should stay into both systems, some of you think that Mirrorless only is where they should focus their resources…
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If they sell me a 35mm 1.8 it’ll be 311.000.900 😛
You are willing to pay 999 100 for it? 😉
Some people are pretty desperate for one.
LOL, oops, 311.999.900
Samsung gain more on TV Business. Good news, the imaging division will become its main focus now. Good for us camera geek
Unless Sony reduce their ridiculous prices on TV sets, they will keep losing money.
With respect to the Thai floods and the tsunami factoring into this, I would say that’s a good sign overall. Hopefully, the fact that “interchangable” is emphasized means they acknowledge that they should probably expand that lens lineup.
Sony doenst have any good commercial here in the United States…Sony in the Tv advertising here in the USA doesn’t exist …Also Sony almost never has promotions…some outlet store have some sometimes…but when you look ad promos from retail store like Sears, Frys, Micro center, newegg, or Adorama you never see A Sony product in their front page and if it is, is all the way in the Back …Sony should fix this and have many promotions to gain capital …
same here in Malaysia..SOny is a BIG HOUSEHOLDS BRANDS..but for camera, nikon ads is everywhere. When they launch the A77, not a single promotion on TV was spotted.
Nikon’s ads are nothing compared to Canon’s sponsorships + ads.
We have more Nikon ad’s than Canon over here in the United Kingdom.
This website is Sony’s advertising. You’re welcome. Sony Alpha is what Apple used to be. The thing you used if you were cool and different. You can march with the sheep and have Ashton Kutcher as your leader. Everyone knew he was cheating on Demi anyway.
I’ve seen a Nex commercial before, but it was not as pronounced and there certainly wasn’t a celebrity pushing it.
Well the losses from Sony are much out of his hands, the Japan tsunami, the Thailand flood and yen costs has been increasing monthly, so yes, Sony is doing relative fine.
I see many NEXes on the Olympics, so Sony has gain a name on the ILC segment. Hope for a really professional level Nex.
Andrea – you seem to put forward that the imaging division profits that are stated as ‘primarily due to a significant increase in sales of interchangeable single lens cameras’ can be used as an argument for increasing resource allocation in the E-mount over the A-mount.
‘those results may will start again the DSLR/SLT versus Mirrorless discussion.’
There is nowhere in that report to give any clue as to whether the increased sales are A-mount, E-mount or both so see no reason whatsoever why that discussion should be fanned by this statement.
From the limited data I have available NEX cameras outsell SLTs by around 3/2 or 2/1. Fair enough.
I do wonder about additional sales beyond the camera bodies alone though….
I have seen a fair few NEXs in the wild & (apart from one with the 16mm) every single one had the kit 18-55 on it.
I would imaging that a fair chunk of NEX buyers are upgraders from P&S style cameras (& probably not SAR readers before everyone else pipes in citing themselves as an example) & will never buy another accessory to go with their camera. Even if they did the amount available is rather limited, so there is really a quite limited opportunity for further sales to each initial purchaser.
The A-mount is a more complete system meaning there are far more further purchases available in the system, & the purchser of a DSLR/T type camera is more likely to take their photography as a serious hobby & therefore make further purchases in the system.
This could easily mean that overall sales for the entire system could possibly be far higher for the A-mount than the E…
Or perhaps not 😉
The fact of the matter is that either way could be what is actually happening & we really have no idea, so there is no basis, rhyme nor reason to start any kind of debate over which deserves more resources lashed on it.
Exactly!
This article doesn’t point anywhere on NEX being an only source of significant increase in sales!!!
Most likely it’s both – NEX and A-mount, especially if you look at sales reports for A77 which nearly constantly floats in top-sellers lists.
“From the limited data I have available NEX cameras outsell SLTs by around 3/2 or 2/1. Fair enough. ” – Yep, that has been known for quite a while. More primitive cameras always outsell more adult – just compare NEX sales to compacts – they do even better outselling NEXes at least 5/1. It doesn’t though mean that Sony should give up A-mount and focus on NEX and P&S. That’s a ridiculous conclusion.
These “P&S” has higher image quality. So no wonder they are outselling piece of crap which all SLTs are.
Eventually they can put the phrase detection capability into image sensor (like Nikon 1). By the time the technology mature, whats’ the point for SLT? Mirrorless in Alpha mount?
Bring us NEX with BodyIS!
I agree that mirrorless is probably the future, but that doesn’t mean a-mount is dead. A large camera is often better to use, and if they keep the register distance which the a-mount needs but removes the mirror, what will they use the extra space for? In-body ND-filters and polarizing filter? Wouldn’t that be neat? Maybe even a star-filter for old times sake 😉 Or what about a menu selection which change the hot-mirror with a IR-filter in front of the sensor?
Once they don’t need SLT, they could always put the OVF back into A-mount cameras 🙂 perhaps a hybrid OVF/EVF.
But in my opinion, EVF is allready better than OVF and will get even better with time, so going back to OVF doesn’t make much sense to me 🙂 (I know not everbody agrees, and for non-crop cameras I’ll hold my judgement until a99 shows up. A fullframe OVF is nice to look through 🙂 ).
But I do think it is interesting to think about what the space used for the mirror could be used to hold instead… what about an optical teleconverter inside the house? Or maybe moving the sensor more freely to give tilt and other effects inside the house?
Oh no not a star filter! Can’t we forget that ever happened!?:)
🙂
Why start the DSLT versus Mirrorless discussion? Don’t get it.
Because we like a good bun fight around here.
It seems to me that A mount and E mount are both growing, so common sense would be to put good R&D into both of them.
Agreed! Both can share technology with the other and both will benefit. And so will the photographer.
Agreed and they benefit from eachother to some extend as well.
Engadget calculated the imaging division revenues (along the professional products?):
“There was better news in its imaging division, while sales of compact cameras fell, DSLRs and “Professional” products took up the slack, resulting in a profit of $160 million”
http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/02/sony-q1-2012/
Nikon says “You’re welcome! Glad we could help your bottom line with the D800.”
Nikon’s purchase of sensors doesn’t show up in the Imaging Products and Solutions Group, which is what those numbers are from. It shows up in the Devices Group, which is a smaller but much more profitable group within Sony than Imaging.
No one is making any money on tv’s at the moment, samsung maybe an exception. Sony hasn’t made any money on TV’s for 7yrs so this is nothing new. It’s good to see the nex doing well, its only going to go from strength to strength.
“…interchangeable single lens cameras…”
Even Sony themselves admit that they make interchangeable cameras and a single lens 🙂
ever heard of TLR?
Or just trolling?
Yes of course I have heard of TLR. TLRs have nothing to do with Sony statement I’ve cited. Do you even understand the mistake in that sentence in the brackets? Or are YOU just trolling?
I thought it confusing at first, but it’s not a mistake. “Single lens” means one lens at a time is used, as in “Single Lens Reflex” cameras, vs. two-lens rangefinders-type cameras. The Alpha and NEX cameras are single-lens cameras, though the single lenses are, in fact, interchangeable.
Or maybe they think a lot about double lens cameras for 3D-images 🙂 Then they could sell the single lens twice for each camera 🙂
NEX-9 with 36 MP fullframe sensor, hybrid AF and EVF of the NEX-7 (or even higher resolution), 1080p60 with better cooling and better scaler and some nice Zeiss or adapted Leica lenses … bye bye mirror; bye bye rangefinders.
I think they should use the Nex name only for E-mount (which is to small for a full frame sensor). I hope they will not make a third lens mount, but rather reinvent what can be done around a-mount. Mirrorless are cool, but it works well with a-mount as well.
E-mount has the same diameter as Nikon’s F-mount. It’s larger than Leica’s M-mount.
46.1mm to be exact. Which leaves 1.41mm between the corner of a FF sensor and the flange edge. Since the flange is 18mm (vs. 44.5mm for A) from the image plane, there is definite vignetting potential of the very corner of a FF sensor at smaller f/# (say <f/4)
Vignetting also depends on the incident angle of the chief ray at the corner, which varies from lens to lens. Normal incidence (e.g., telecentric lenses) is better for light absorption in sensors, but "FF lenses made for FF E-mount" could certainly be designed away from that. Of equal concern would be stray light potential of lenses that overfill the image plane and reflect off internal mount components.
It’s another problem. That probably can be solved in some way (and it better be solved: large focal length is a strong limitation factor).
FF won’t work with NEXes. First of all – no lenses cover full frame, secondly putting a FF sensor in there would cause significant mechanical vignetting. Just go & get Alpha. Or Leica.
As Denis wrote above already, the dimension of the E-Mount will be no problem and I see absolutely no reason for “mecahnical vignetting”.
The FF-version could start with at elast one nice lens and I could live some time with adapted alpha / M-mount lenses.
bye bye full frame pro maket
Not.
The patient is suffering severe internal hemorrhaging, but her cut is healing quite nicely!
As you quoted yourself, Sony said:
“Sales increased 7.6% year-on-year (a 12% increase on a constant currency basis) to 193.8 billion yen (2,453 million U.S. dollars). This increase was primarily due to a significant increase in sales of interchangeable single lens cameras reflecting higher demand…”
All NEX AND SLT cameras fall in that “interchangeable single lens” category, not only NEX as you assumed!
IMHO that’s even better news!!
Sometimes you seem too NEX-oriented…!