Duane Pandorf":1xpc6w3m said:
But a question I have not seen answered even if it could, how many modules have they sold? Is it enough to ensure the GXR stays in the fold as the merger between Pentax and Ricoh is completed.
It wasn't a merger as in company-merger. Ricoh Inc bought the Pentax Assets off Hoya as far as I know. They have since merged the camera operations as a division and the Pentax name predominates. But Ricoh owns the combined camera operation lock stock and barrel. What will happen to the Ricoh branded camera products must be a combination of pride and pragmatism.
Leica gets by on small volume sales because there are still enough people who will pay super-premium prices for the mystique of the name. They can hand a retailer one week's profit to sell one of their systems with a couple of lenses. Once Leica was just one of several high quality camera manufacturers making rangefinder style cameras and good lenses. Either by luck or good judgement they survived the Japanese slr onslaught. Their own venture into slr type must be judged a market failure despite their impeccable high-quality credentials. They have kept up a range of product by rebadging Panasonic cameras and have been split into three independently separate companies that use the Leica brand name, again, as far as I know. Whereas people would buy Leica RF bodies and lenses despite Leica's need for ever-increasing margins to remain viable, when it came to slr bodies price and Japanese reliability overcame sentiment. The other RF camera companies seem to have followed the dinosauers.
They run the small volume-high margin model and it appears to be working. They rely on continued high quality standards and brand recognition to do this.
Much like the former Ricoh camera division they would struggle to generate enought money from relatively low volume sales to fund r&d for new models in the rapidly evolving digital camera age.
Ricoh on the other hand just don't have the badge-credo to command premium prices for their products. Stick Leica badges on the GXR and all of a sudden it would be ok to pay more for them and owners would huddle and talk in hushed tones about how they really appreciated the quality despite the high entry price. No more would anyone worry about their obsolete 12mp sensor - microlenses and optimisation for sacred lenses would be the subject of awe. And of course the Leica/Ricoh shooting experience (whatever that might be).
The Ricoh camera division does have somethig that Leica Camera don't have - a big brother division that makes copiers and as long as big brother is tolerant and can find the cash to put up the capital backing the Ricoh camera name will continue. Obviously big brother bought the Pentax lolly shop and told the little fella to run over and play there. Perhaps there will be enough volume of turnover from the combined Pentax/Ricoh sales to justify further r&d expenditure for new models.
Certainly I do think that Ricoh wishes to be revered as a Japanese niche market Leica and perhaps they are already there in Japan, but it has not translated into the ability to charge whatever they like and still sell whatever they produce.
My common sense tells me that Ricoh might reserve it's name for the quality niche and use Pentax for volume and the Pentax name and market clout to sidecar it's products into shops. The only real problem is that Pentax has always seen itself as a quirky niche player as well, as is evidenced by the Q and the K-01.
Who knows, big brother probably has to ante up some more funds for r&d on new products but had to make some internal rationalisations first. Presumably the new Pentax/Ricoh camera division has been bedded in and some surprises are in store. But as far as product is concerned whatever they sell is just "badges on cameras" as much as Leica sells Panasonic cameras as Leicas. As long as Pentax/Ricoh can sell enough GXR and GRD product at a price to make it worth while then they will continue to do so. Also bear in mind it seems that Ricoh at least has always had a business model where product is made in batches and warehoused until sold. There are probably a whole lot of GXR bodies and modules in warehouses somewhere to cover expected sales over their nominated period and dumping the GXR as a camera model is probably the most expensive choice that could be made.
Meanwhile the move to the EVIL-type camera has brought the RF style paradigm back into the fore. It is now the slr concept that is increasingly on the back foot. But Leica has a delicious dillemma - they are very succesful for their size and logically should "own" the RF style digital camera body market but still need a volume sales model to generate continuing r&d funds in great quantity and yet they cannot market a big-volume product at suitable pricing because the market now expects Leica to be expensive. Cheap Leicas are thought not to be "real Leicas" nor can they be bespoke built like the sought-after-ones. The danger of course is that the prices for their lenses and M-something or other bodies will have to keep going up and up and up until sooner or later ....
"Pentax" was probably the solution for a similar but different marketing problem at Ricoh Inc.
I did mull over the possibility that Leica might re-badge the GXR as it's own but everybody died laughing.
Sorry but I just cannot shake off being a professional accountant for a lifetime just because I now play with cameras.
Tom
