The one year market share data posted at BCNranking (Click here) shows that mirrorless share felt from 36,7% in December 2010 to 31% in April 2011. I guess this is a normal fluctuation caused by the fact that there have been no new mirrorless cameras and lenses during the last couple of months. I expect the trend to go up again after the Sony-Samsung-Panasonic-Olympus June product announcements!
But there are some bad news too today 🙁
1) Ricoh plans to cut 9% of its workforce and consolidate factories over the next three years to help boost growth (Photoradar).
2) A month ago Panasonic announced that it will cut 35,000 (overseas) employees (Click here to read that article at 43rumors).
3) The new CEO from Olympus (the brit Michael Woodford) said “he will cut jobs to achieve his mid-term cost targets and reverse what he said was an unacceptable slump in earnings, but would avoid forced redundancies in Japan for cultural reasons.“ (Click here to read that article at 43rumors).
Damn 🙁
10 Responses
Tausend?
Townshend, as in Pete 🙂
Ja, auf deutsch.
Don’t agree that’s a fluctuation because there has been no mirrorless models. There haven’t been many new DSLRs either. I think the fall is due to novelty of mirrorles wearing out. Most early adopters / enthusiasts have bought what they wanted, so now it’s up to companies that produce mirrorless cameras to market them to people that do not read photo websites. I get comments about my E-PL1 like: “How do you compose if there’s no viewfinder?” “Is that a Leica?” “I didn’t know Olympus produced such cameras.” “Interchangeable lens – a DSLR?”. It’s not up to me but up to Panasonic, Olympus, Samsung and Sony to educate common folk. Then the sales will go up again and over that 36%.
I think the biggest issue with mirrorless right now is lens support. The m43 bodies lack fast zooms and third party lens support. I have yet to find a roadmap that shows these lenses in the pipeline. Samsung NX has a decent roadmap, they just need to stick to it, get third party support, and fix their marketing! I don’t pay attention to NEX, so I can’t really say much about that system. The Ricoh ‘lensor’ idea was innovative, but I’ve got to imagine the margins on those are terrible. I also don’t really like the idea of making the sensor a system variable.
Fire people for helping “grow”. Wow. Interesting thinking.
Gee, I wonder if all this hoopla about mirrorless being the next “big thing” is just that: a bunch of hoopla. While 31% market share is noting to sneeze at, it seems as if market share, at least for Japan, has leveled out. And with Panasonic and Olympus both losing money on their imaging business, it seems that the micro 4/3 strategy isn’t the road to riches that it was being projected as.
To me, micro 4/3 (and mirrorless in general) is a very nice HD camcorder than can take still photos too. Not a bad combination, but they are all terrible in regards to something even the most basic DSLR can do easily: action photography. Well, yes, I guess you could video action, but forget about trying to do any sort of “stop action” sports photography, which is something even the most humble American soccer mom considers essential, when trying to capture their seven year old offspring running up and down the football field. Perhaps the G3 is better in this regard….I do hope so.
The fact that the prices of these things puts them head to head with DSLR’s doesn’t help either. The GH2 might be the independent film maker’s best friend, but there are not enough of those types to keep micro 4/3 viable. The still photographer [a much bigger percentage of the market] is going to look at the $1,500 USD price tag of a GH2, and go off and buy a Nikon D7000 or a Canon 60D instead, either of which far exceeds the GH2 when it comes to still photography, and both are capable of video anyway, even if it’s not as well implemented as on the Lumix.
I like the micro 4/3 concept, and the mirrorless concept in general, but you can’t price a camera that is a clear step down from a traditional DSLR just like a DSLR and expect people to flock to them.
And don’t even get me started on the ridiculous micro 4/3 lens pricing, from both Olympus and Panasonic. I’d harp on Sony too, but it seems they think their customers don’t need lenses, and by their NEX sales success, it seems they’re right.
Olympius
It may also be that the people of Japan are concentrating on other things right now.
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