Fuji released a pdf containing the latest info about their financial status (Click here to download): “In photo imaging business, sales decreased due to strong yen appreciation and the impact of the earthquake.” That was to be expected, also other Japanese companies reported similar (if not worse) losses. The good news is that the Fuji X100 “especially showed considerable sales beyond the Company’s expectations and reached the annual sales target for the first year of 0.1 million units in nine months. In addition, sales of FUJIFILM X10, released in October 2011 as a second model of the X series, are showing a positive start. Despite the overall decline in digital camera demand from the previous year, sales volume increased by approximately 7%, reaching 9.5 million units.”
This is the goal for the future: “The sales volume target for this year will be set at 13 million units, up 16% from the previous year.” I guess all depends now from the X PRO 1 sales. Just my guess: If the camera price would have been a tiny bit lower than I am sure they would sell many more units than they can imagine. But at $1700 (or Euro) the line between success and failure is thin!
(pdf found via NoisyC)
2 Responses
So sales budget up from a (depressed by earthquake etc) 9.5 million units to a full year 13 million units. Ok, aggressive targets.
9 months extraordinary sales of the X100 being 100,000 units…
And you think they have to drop the price of the X-Pro1 to reach this target?
You’re dreaming. The X-Pro1 won’t sell 3.5 million units in a year with or without a price drop. It might sell hundreds of thousands, but the millions volume has to come from the P&S market and the other X cameras.
It’s their highest price camera. High price cameras never dominate the volume sales.
Everybody is telling Fuji to trash the price. Reality is, Fuji is going to sell this camera at a price it considers fair for the cost of development and production and also compared to competitors, not what someone on dpreview or photo rumors sites who all seem to want to buy the best cameras for cheap tells them.
I agree with DR. They are trying to create a new niche market and they will price accordingly. They know they will not sell a million X Pro 1’s, but if the reviews start coming favorably in terms of IQ and handling, they will probably sell a lot of X Pro 1’s.
They are the only kid on the block apparently, so they can do as they did with the X100 and enjoy – price wise – until Sony comes after them with a Nex 7N or NEX-8, as it seems that, for now, Nikon and Canon are too afraid to canibalize their DSLR numbers.
We’ll see… Now the only thing missing is all these cameras coming out for us to use them instead of only talking!