Latest profits for Canon...

I've just seen this post on another forum...

Canons last quarter net profit in 2008 was down 90% compared to 2007!

Over the year the net profit fell 37%, this includes sales of all Canon products.

Canon have put it down to the strength of the Yen...how about dropping the prices fellas?!!

I think a more obvious reason could be that people are defecting to Pentax!

Canon have today just put there prices up again this year, all Canon items across the board up 10% from the 1st Feb 09.

Still making a profit though.

More relevant to this forum would be that Samsung have recorded their first ever quarterly loss. Just hope they don't cut down on the imaging R&D !!

Sony also made a loss. Anyone know how Hoya are doing?

Of course Canon, Sony and Samsung have a lot more irons in the fire than digital photography alone. I imagine the losses were across the board.

Sigma kit is going up in Feb, in the UK that is.
I don't know about the rest of the world.

It's all going up here too, Pentax, Sigma, and the rest, if it hasn't already. So it'll still be cheaper for us to buy in the UK whilst the pound is so low against the Euro.

Any one got a few Euro's to spare for a poor Brit

I realise that most of the manufacturers if not all have experienced difficulties in the last few months and that it's not down to customers defecting to other brands but the overall financial situation.

But wouldn't it be good if the loss was down to Canon/Sony/Nikon owners finally discovering some better quality in the form of Pentax?

It would be great Rob, but sadly it ain't gonna happen. (With a few notable exceptions :wink

I have seen a lot of Pentax gear for sale on a second hand goods website here in the Netherlands where the reason for sale is given as switch to another manufacturer.

I realise that Gwyn. The other day on an airshow forum I gave some advice to someone who wondered whether to buy a Pentax and I sang the praises of the K20D along with the DA*300mm which I own (currently in Germany being repaired ) but I had to admit that the AF is slower than Canon and the lenses don't have a specific panning mode.

So that might have convinced him to avoid Pentax who knows.

Pentax have said after the K10D that the next camera would have a better sensor or better AF since they don't have time and money to spend on both. Since the K20D has a new and better sensor there are some high hopes for a new AF system, just keep our fingers crossed.

You should mention that the low end models of Canon don't have spot metering, it's far more useful then a faster AF imho, certainly with airshows during bright days

Hoya's numbers will be published next week. It will be interesting to see what is going on with them.