Canon released their financials and the news is grim if you look at what has transpired for Canon since they announced the RF mount.
From the numbers Canon is down 22% in sales for the 2019 year on year compared to 2018, and this quarter alone, down 16%.
Canon always posts their financials first, but others will soon follow. From what we saw last quarter, everyone had bad quarters. I doubt we’ll see much different this quarter after everyone else shows their financials.
The market is hurting, and still is. It’s to be expected though. When 75% of the entire market decides to up and change their mounts within a few weeks of each other things are going to go bad. Combine that with the fact that the old mounts had cameras that were excellent making it even harder to switch users, because they are basically using what they have and don’t have a compelling reason to upgrade. It would be curious to look back at Canon’s financials when they switched from the FD to the EF mount, but it would not surprise me of the same sort of hit to their bottom line happened.
Canon blames the contraction of the market, partly due to the erosion of the DSLR entry level market. Canon also states that price competition is rising between the various manufacturers as Sony, Nikon, Canon and Pansonic compete directly against each other in the highly competitive full frame mirrorless market.
In the third quarter, our sales of interchangeable-lens cameras decreased 7% to 980 thousand units due to the impact of market contraction, mainly for entry-level DSLRs.
Amid market contraction, price competition surrounding higher-end full-frame models intensified due to the energy that each manufacturer is putting into this segment. In this kind of environment, and due to our stance to prioritize profitability, we posted third-quarter unit sales of higher-end models that were below our plan.
Canon is working at delivering better products, as we have seen with the continual updates to the EOS-R and EOS-RP via firmware since their announcements. It seems this will continue for Canon as well. They will also focus more on marketing and social media.
we are raising the appeal of our products, continuously making improvements to software which has a significant impact on performance, such as making available firmware upgrades that further improves the accuracy of autofocus. On top of these measures, we will work to encourage potential customers to purchase our products with a focus on digital marketing, through such activities as partnering with professional photographers using social media, and distributing videos that highlight the strengths of our optical technology.
There is some good news here. Canon is not lowering their year projection of sales on Cameras, partly due to the fact that it seems like the EOS-M which is still #1 in Japan, is now #1 outside of Japan, and with positive feedback for both the M6 Mark II and the 90D. That’s kind of huge, and Canon, like any other company, wouldn’t deceive too much on that relevant statistic in their financials. The fact that the EOS-M has now gained #1 status, everywhere, is most likely a good thing. I hope that translates into more lenses and better cameras for those that like the EOS-M (me!) (Where’s my EF-M 55mm 1.4 Canon?)
we did expand sales, mainly for a popularly priced mirrorless camera that has secured the number one market share position, both in and outside of Japan. Furthermore, thanks to positive feedback we have also received for new mid-range cameras, we decided to maintain our full-year unit sales projection.
As for compact cameras, Canon feels that the new G series compacts are going strong, and they will not adjust the year forecast for sales for compacts.
As for compact cameras, we kept our previous full-year unit sales projection as our results have been in line with expectations. Even in the shrinking market, we exceeded the third quarter unit sales of last year of premium G series models that offer advanced video features, bringing new young people into our ecosystem. We will continue efforts to expand sales of our G series, which has relatively higher margins, and link this to improved profitability.
You can review and read all the financials on Canon's website here.
Some of you may notice that some of the content is similar to what is appearing at CanonNews, that’s because I’m helping Craig out a bit for the next few days, so you’ll have to put up with my opinions
I could imagine more people feel the same way so 2020 could be quite ok actually.
I'm of the belief that 2020 is going to be a huge and quite fun year.
March 2020 seems to be the word in the forums when we all rush to buy but I’m not convinced following the recent rumours that Canon are still considering things to add to its pro mirrorless line.
Or maybe I'll smarten up and realize I don't need more than I already have!
Jack
because if the M6 Mark II was supposed to replace the M5 and M6, I'm sure they would have called it something different than an M6 Mark II.
As Craig said in his podcast with LR, Nikon may not make it.
Maybe you need some brain surgery to help you with that one too. ;)
I really hope they reconsider and release an M5ii. Really love my M5 and personally can't do without a viewfinder. One of the best grips in it's segment too this and the M6 bodies. Wish my X-T2 had a similar grip for times when I can do without my X-H1.
Jack