Canon Can't Even Make a Billion Dollars Anymore

[neuroanatomist]

...It is difficult for Canon to make a bold move with the 6D like it did with the 5DII, as it has to play nice with its more sophisticated bigger brother...

Probably true although the gap between them seems huge.  Canon certainly could have made the 6D much more attractive and appealing to a larger consumer group with adequate AF, 100% VF, CF card, and 7D/5D ergo.  IMO, Canon has deprived themselves from 6D sales due to the specs.  I for one was a potential consumer until the specs came out.

If you want/need great AF, 100% VF, CF card, and 7D/5D ergo, Canon wants you to buy a 5DIII.  They are good at up-marketing. 50D users were pushed to the 7D vs. the 60D in the same way.  I think the 6D is targeted at xxxD/60D owners, not 7D/5DII owners, in terms of an upgrade.

[DB]

What Neuro says is what the Canon Europe executive said @ Photokina in Germany last month when interviewed by Camera Labs (I posted YouTube vid earlier on another thread): "the 6D is an ideal upgrade body for Rebel and 60D owners" - so it was never intended for 7D/5D2 owners as a progression path.

[distant.star]

i wil not and cannot ever pay 2150 euros (2800 dollar) for a 70-200 2,8 IS as i only have a income of 915 euros a month...
so no matter how much i like all canon gear they are just stupidly expencive.

You could live in a cardboard box for a couple of months and do some dumpster diving to eat. And there you go, just like that and you've got your new lens!

Or, are you not willing to suffer for your art?

[steliosk]

New canon products are overrated. Not affordable, i'm very glad they fell out of their goal making money.
Canon should open eyes and see the world economic crisis.
where the hell are you going selling 5D 3 3.000 $
are you expecting to sell like 5D 2 back in her age while the worlds economic pulse isn't good?

Products i WOULD buy to upgrade my work:
5D 3
70-200 2.8 IS II
24-70 2.8 II

but the prices of those products are EXTREMELY high with no reason. Its like canon saying, DON'T BUY IT.. and i'm curious, why the hell are you constructing such monsters if you don't want to sell them!

[RC]

...It is difficult for Canon to make a bold move with the 6D like it did with the 5DII, as it has to play nice with its more sophisticated bigger brother...

Probably true although the gap between them seems huge.  Canon certainly could have made the 6D much more attractive and appealing to a larger consumer group with adequate AF, 100% VF, CF card, and 7D/5D ergo.  IMO, Canon has deprived themselves from 6D sales due to the specs.  I for one was a potential consumer until the specs came out.

If you want/need great AF, 100% VF, CF card, and 7D/5D ergo, Canon wants you to buy a 5DIII.  They are good at up-marketing. 50D users were pushed to the 7D vs. the 60D in the same way.  I think the 6D is targeted at xxxD/60D owners, not 7D/5DII owners, in terms of an upgrade.

Dead-on analysis.  You sure nailed it for my situation anyway.  After being absent from photography for several years, I was looking at the 50D as my first dSLR but waited for the 60D's announcement first.   I was disappointed with the 60D specs so I went with a 7D.   Now today, déjà vu, the major disappointment with the 6D has driven me to the 5D3.  Just waiting for the price to drop a little more before I order.

I think the 6D is targeted at xxxD/60D owners, not 7D/5DII owners, in terms of an upgrade.

Exactly and that is why it should have a xxD name instead of a xD.  Canon wasted the 6D slot IMO.

[HarryWintergreen]

Canon at photokina was amazingly uninspired. I am a Canon fanboy but Nikon, Fuji and others showed much morementhusiasm. G15 is a joke. The only thing showing a bit of making the other manufactures gasp is the shorty forty. This was a quite smart move. But it's just not enough to show the big whites. There is so much that could be said. I hate to see Sony going in the right direction with the RX 1 and Canon hoping to be sacrosanct as a big player. Nothing to write home about.

[ankorwatt]

Canon's semiconductor equipment business is in even worse trouble than the imaging business.
Within the Industry and Others Business Unit, among semiconductor lithography equipment, while sales of i-line steppers remained at the same level as the previous year owing to demand for sensors and LED elements, sales volume overall decreased due to restrained capital expenditure for memory devices. As for flat-panel-display lithography equipment, unit sales decreased by half compared with the year-ago period due to sluggish demand for large-size LCD panels. Consequently, third-quarter sales for the segment decreased by 24.9%

And with the more modern smaller wavelength KrF and ArF, forming 60% of the market, where Canon hasn't achieved any market at all . Overall much the same story as camera sensors - failure to keep up with competitors' technology and thus declining market share.
it gives them another problem, if they move sensor production to smaller geometry nodes, they won't be using Canon photolithography equipment.

This  graph are from Nikon  and for the same equipment.

[infared]

These price drops may not be good for early adopters.  That's why patience is always a virtue.  But you had enjoyed your camera 4 months earlier than the rest of us.  Right?
[/quote]

I expect the price to come down $200-$300...but no $700.  My 5DII really held its value....This is just absurd.

[infared]

New canon products are overrated. Not affordable, i'm very glad they fell out of their goal making money.
Canon should open eyes and see the world economic crisis.
where the hell are you going selling 5D 3 3.000 $
are you expecting to sell like 5D 2 back in her age while the worlds economic pulse isn't good?

Products i WOULD buy to upgrade my work:
5D 3
70-200 2.8 IS II
24-70 2.8 II

but the prices of those products are EXTREMELY high with no reason. Its like canon saying, DON'T BUY IT.. and i'm curious, why the hell are you constructing such monsters if you don't want to sell them!

I agree with you completely! Although...my 70-200 (which I paid $2500 for when it was released) is sooooooo sharp sometimes I actually think it was worth the money. LOL. Not so for the new 24-70mm tho...mixed reviews does not garner a $2300 price tag....Waaaaay overpriced...what is Canon thinking?

[AG]

The way i see this whole thing. (your opinion may vary)

Yes, Canon are pricing themselves out of the market by trying to cover the losses of their other less successful areas of business, such as say the printer department etc.

They have relied on P&S cameras for way too long.

They need to realise that mobile phones are going to replace point and shoots for a majority of the market. The way to rectify this problem is not to flood the marked with cheap nasty point and shoots but provide a few models for those few that still want them.

Similar can be said about the Digital Compacts.

They need to work out where they are going with this line? The G1X, G15, G12, SX40HS?
These are cameras that need to be a single line, not multiple versions of the same thing but this one has less blue tint or this ones flash is 10% brighter. Stuff the average consumer wont really care about.

EOS M range.

A step in the right direction but is it too little too late?
Why couldn't they have taken the G1X line and this line and made a single all round great Digital Mirrorless Compact?

Then there is the EOS range of DSLRs.

They need to make a decision where they are planning on going with this range.
As the way it stands at the moment there is way too many models to choose from and none of them really satisfy what the customers really want.
1DX is a great Journalistic camera but where is the 1Ds high MP replacement?
5D3 is a great Landscape/Low Light camera so why do we really need a 6D? why couldnt they have just dropped the price of the 5D3 and sold a hell of a lot more cameras?

How many models of the rebels do we really need?

...and while we are at it, what is the point of the 60D? why wasn't the 6D turned into the new 70D?(same plastic body etc not a 5D2 replacement that isn't quite as good) especially if the XXXD models are basically the same sensor/tech as the 60D is.

Then this rolls into the EOS Cinema.

Why is the 1DC so freaking expensive for firmware tweaks (and i know they claim it was completely new blah blah blah, but lets be honest if you are going to try and sell a $15K camera would you admit that its basically the same as its $7k twin brother?)
The C100 is overpriced for the market they are aiming at. at the same time the C300 is crippled for the market they are aiming at. (at least add 60p frame rates)

They need to have someone come in and decide lets cut the bulk and streamline this product line up.

[RS2021]

I think the 6D is targeted at xxxD/60D owners, not 7D/5DII owners, in terms of an upgrade.

Exactly and that is why it should have a xxD name instead of a xD.  Canon wasted the 6D slot IMO.

While this may be Canon's effort to get the xxxD and 60D crowd to move up to full frame bodies, the pricing is rather clumsy or overly optimistic. The initial pricing of 6D at ~$2099 is somewhat of a reach for this sub-$1000 crowd. I see T4i is going for around $750 and 60D is going for about $850 (cpw). So they are looking at a significant leap in $$$ here even with the added "features". Unless Canon is trying to milk the 6D "pre-order" crowd (surprise, surprise) at high prices and then drop 6D prices to somewhere around ~ $1600 in the few months after release and perhaps even to around $1400 in a year, the current pricing is neither competitive nor sustainable. But if the recent 5D3 price trajectory is anything to go by, then the ~$1400 to 1600 may not be such a bad target price for the 6D in a year or so after all.

[heron88]

Yip, I'll order a 5D3 when it drops below 3k

Though this particular one has ended, the deals are out there. Keep an eye out and you can get pretty decent prices.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Canon-EOS-5D-Mark-III-Digital-Camera-Digital-SLR-Body-/180998819475?afepn=5335869999&campid=5335869999&PID=1225267&forcev4exp=true&forceRpt=true#ht_3479wt_1397

[Dylan777]

Some of Canon's problem is the world economy...but much of it has to do with the RIDICULOUS prices that Canon is attaching to MANY of their products. WAY out of line with their competitors.  I feel some massive rebates coming on sometime soon...I for one am buying NOTHING Canon until the company gets real...I bought a 5DIii 4 months ago...and now see it online for $700 less than I paid for it? Canon....that is insulting to your customers. I expect the price to drop...but nothing like this. Also delivering products that are far below their hardware capabilities and having hackers embarrassingly shoewng your own firmware ?
Everyone...let's do a Canon boycott for 6 months...right thru the holidays and bring this arrogant behaving company to its knees!

+1....a lot of poeple said that wasn't an office price drop from Canon. To me...it's Bssssssssss.

[Dylan777]

Some of Canon's problem is the world economy...but much of it has to do with the RIDICULOUS prices that Canon is attaching to MANY of their products. WAY out of line with their competitors.  I feel some massive rebates coming on sometime soon...I for one am buying NOTHING Canon until the company gets real...I bought a 5DIii 4 months ago...and now see it online for $700 less than I paid for it? Canon....that is insulting to your customers. I expect the price to drop...but nothing like this. Also delivering products that are far below their hardware capabilities and having hackers embarrassingly shoewng your own firmware ?
Everyone...let's do a Canon boycott for 6 months...right thru the holidays and bring this arrogant behaving company to its knees!

These price drops may not be good for early adopters.  That's why patience is always a virtue.  But you had enjoyed your camera 4 months earlier than the rest of us.  Right?

To me...it should be 1st come 1st serve, regardless when you placed your order.

[sanj]

The lack of funds could perhaps be the main reason why it takes so long to replenish stock and release announced products on time.