Pentax representatives were invited to a financial advisors conference by a place whose web site is http://www.clsa.com. the conference was held in Tokyo on March 19, 2004. Jiro Okamura, Manager of Investor Relations Group for Pentax, had these things to say about Pentax:
1) growth in the company is driven by medical products and not by digital still cameras. 2) digital still cameras, the second biggest factor in revenue, remains profitable. however, relatively small market share limits growth going forward. DSLR sales are falling short of projections because of stiff competition. 3) medical products are a stable cash cow for Pentax with endoscopes being the largest factor. 70% of all Pentax's endoscope sales are in the US. 4) most of the company's growth for FY 2004 will be from medical products. if you go and check statistics at http://www.cipa.co.jp/english, you will see that in 2002, Japanese manufacturers produced about 3.3 million film SLRs. there are no breakout figures for DSLR production but there have been sources estimating about 400,000 DSLRs sold world wide in 2002. for 2003, these manufacturers produced just under 2.3 million film SLRs. DSLRs have a category of their own and there were about 820,00 units produced. according to Canon press releases, they sold about 600,000 DSLRs last year and accounted for 70% of the market, most of which were the Digital Rebel model. Nikon accounted for almost all of the remaining 30%. Canon, in the same press release, said that they plan to manufacture about 1.1 million DSLRs in 2004. if you believe Nikon's production capacity for D70 cameras, they are aiming to do about 900,000 in 2004. if we assume that the total SLR market for 2004 is about 3.8 million units, DSLRs will outsell film SLRs this year. if not this year, they certainly will next year. FYI for those of you that care, in 2002, all Japanese manufacturers produced 2,366 medium and large format cameras. in 2003, they produced 709. Herb...