Saturday, February 7, 2009

Politic as “unusual”

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Hi Pentaxian friends.

Here in the USA, the economy has weakened so much that our future isn’t as bright as it once was. People are losing their jobs at a rate of half a million every Month. Manufacturers and Retailers are closing their doors because Banks aren’t lending any money. Banks aren’t lending money because they screwed-up big time in the name of greed. We, “The People” are stuck with the bill. The public’s confidence for a moderately quick recovery is spiraling downward at an ever-increasing rate. I don’t believe in stimulus packages as half the experts are enticing us to spend more while the other half is suggesting that we save our money. One suggestion is counterproductive to the other.

When one person loses his or her job, the domino effect is very consequential. That person will no longer eat out, or shop for new clothes. That person will purchase less nutritious food and will look for low prices. That person will probably not go out to the movies and that person will have a million things to worry about, let alone buying a new DSLR. Consequently, other folks will lose their jobs because the demands for their products or services are declining at the same rate as people are losing their employment. Take this one-person job loss and multiply that by five hundred thousand times each Month. It’s catastrophic.

Circuit City - Bankrupt in November 2008.

CompUSA - Closed in 2007

Minolta became Sony in 2006.

Since the USA has always been the biggest consumer, other Countries are starting to feel the pain as their exports to the USA are declining. It’s a matter of supply and demand. The same vicious circle is now being felt by other regions of the world.

What will that mean for the sales of DSLRs here in the USA and Worldwide? For one thing, fewer people will purchase new cameras and equipment. This might translate to manufacturers having too much inventory and prices may go down even more than they have in the past few Months. I read yesterday that Panasonic just laid off 15,000 employees in Japan. Japan camera makers may feel the pain soon. Will all the DSLR and digital compact cameras manufacturers survive this world crisis? Nikon and Canon could probably lose money for a long time, in hope of capturing the entire market. Sony, who has been losing money every Months with their DSLR lines may opt to get out of the DSLR market all together. Pentax, with their already excellent DSLRs at half the prices of the competitors, may find themselves in a sweet spot. Consumers are forced to shop carefully, and Pentax’s value for the money is well known, and the news is spreading. Pentax is not all that well represented in brick and mortar stores, but local camera stores will soon be something of the past. Young man, the future is on the Internet! I don’t know anyone that owns an Olympus DSLR and I am always surprised to see that they are still in business.

While this may be wishful thinking from my part, I think Pentax will not only survive this economic crisis, they may come out of it smelling like roses.

Thank you for reading,

Yvon Bourque

P.S. It would be interesting to read comments about the economic status in your Country.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

While being in the field, I survey what brand is out there, most is Canon followed clodely by Nikon then Pentax. In the last year I have seen only 1 Olympus and 2 Sony. My ballpark figure is about 400 cameras surveyed. As for the economy, well no one listen when I said it was going to happen that way about 7 or 8 years ago. Too late. I work for an American company and I am based in Canada, we are doing much better, we are still affected but not as much. We are uncertain as what is going and how it is going to happen. Now the problem is that rest of the world is being affected, that's what dangereous. Time will tell, meanwhile let's go out there and shoot, well with the camera. Have fun!

Unknown said...

My country is traditionally regarded as one of the richest in the world. We're a small economy with a large per capita income.
From my perspective it feels like riding a very rough sea in a very small boat; we're at the mercy of the global conjunctures no matter what we do. As a result, people here are also losing jobs. The banks here also sit on their money. In particular, they are holding back from lending money to people starting new businesses. Which is very sad for those who would like to have a go at creating their own job.
But on the whole, our little rocking boat is floating yet. We're much less worse-off than many others, thanks to that black, sticky, much-in-demand commodity we can suck out of the continental shelf off our shores.

Jostein,
in Norway