Nikon: resumed shipment from Thailand

[yoshi]

Nikon resumed partial shipment yesterday from Thailand where their own plant, Nikon Thailand, was badly suffered from the long lasting flood since July. The production was resumed not at Nikon Thailand plant but at one of their sub-contractors plant.

Nikon Thailand plans to re-start manufacturing at their own plant only partially in Jan and recovers to its full production at the end of March next year.

Their official press release is here.

http://www.nikon.com/news/2011/1201_01_e.htm

Nikon Thailand is their major plant and manufactures dSLR's such as D300S,D7000,D5100,D3100. In terms of units, the plant assembles 92% of Nikon's total camera production and 66% of interchangeable lenses.

yoshi

[Pops]

Re: Nikon: resumed shipment from Thailand

The projected sales loss is massive. Never had a nikon myself but you have to admire their work and dedication in bouncing back.

[Ian]

Re: Nikon: resumed shipment from Thailand

I think Nikon will be thinking that it got the Nikon 1 system launched just in time and thank goodness it's made in China and not Thailand...

Ian

[Bob Ross]

Re: Nikon: resumed shipment from Thailand

Hi Yoshi.
Thanks for the Nikon news. I just discovered that I have two cousins in Thailand. The one that I heard from is connected to a school which is in the flood area. His wife and son moved to central Bangkok, but food supplies are eratic. They return to the UK later this month. The other cousin is in the south and should be OK.
This sort of thing will set off a chain of corrective actions in lots of companies.
Bob

[yoshi]

Re: Nikon: resumed shipment from Thailand

Hi Bob,
Hope your cousin and his family are not too much suffered from the eratic supply of food. We exprerienced it here in March after the Nuke plant hydrogen explosions. Not only food but beers ...
On the other side, it must be a good idea to spend Christmas in UK.

Nikon seems to be the single largest sufferer from the flood among major camera manufacturers.
In the first half ot this year, Nikon D3100 was the number one best seller model for March and May in Japanese market. Until then it was always Canon Kiss X* (X4 or X5: I'm currrently a bit confused about the model code they use outside Japan. In US it's always called Rebel ** so easy to remember but for Europe and other areas, 450D/500D? or 500D/600D?)
How the flood affects the market share race this year, I wonder.

Another topic.
As far as the mirrorless camera is concerned, they now have more or less 30% of the total market of interchangeable lens cameras, that is, both dSLR and the mirrorless are combined.

Out of the mirrorless camera market segment, the market share for each mirrorless camera brand for Jan - Oct period are;

Olympus 37.1%
Panasonic 29.5%
Sony 29.3%
others 4.1%

What would happen to Oly's market share from now on as a result of damn fraud?
It is also amazing that micro 4/3rds occupy two-thirds of the total mirrorless market in Japan.

yoshi

[Bob Ross]

Re: Nikon: resumed shipment from Thailand

Hi Yoshi,
Another player in the flooded factories is Sony, whose A65, A77, Nex C3,5n & 7 + lenses are involved. They seem to have all their baskets in one egg. The Nex 7 is the one that I'm interested in and I probably wont see it until next spring.
The growth of the mirrorless (for lack of a better name) has been amazing. I think it really shows how much we all want smaller cameras & lenses.
When I hear about the Oly situation, I think Oh-oh, another tip of an iceberge. The global corporate culture is infected with corruptions of various natures. Even probably legit transactions like Sony buying Konica-Minolta's camera operation (which baffled me) could actually be ploys to cover older problems brought to light when Konica and Minolta joined-up. One gets caught and fifteen others cruise on by.
Bob