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How many M240's are sold in a given year?


ECohen

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 Can anybody out there quote me a few facts? How many M240's are sold in a given year?

This forum has a lot of interest in "whats next". I love this current technology and cant imagine a  breakthrough that would make me trade up in the foreseeable future
It makes me wonder how many M's Leica would expect sell in a year? 
.....just curious
Thanks in advance for the stats
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Thanks .....that's much more than I would have thought.

 
For me I enjoy..... the quality,  the layout of the menu (less being more), the need to be deliberate and thoughtful because its a rangefinder....and it's just darn fun to use.
 
I'm happy to know that the market is so big.
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Gentlemen,

 

While this forum and website are a great promoter of Leica, and the first place to look for advice and answers, it is by no means the majority of the community. More Leica M users are not present here than are.

 

I have run across a few in my meager little travels that never heard of the place and a few more that have that choose to avoid it.

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Given those numbers- and that impressive $$$ figure- it makes the old argument that the M is a niche product look a little less stable. Imagine if Sony or Fuji made an M mount body for half the price of the M. I imagine for every M owner out there- there are at least two or more people who know all about them, would love to have one- but cannot afford/justify the expense. Personally I think competition is good and spurs innovation.

 

(this is where MJH steps in and says "It will NEVER happen" ;-)

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The Nikon and Canon rangefinders in their time were not cheaper than the Leica, the Contax more expensive. Only the Voigtlanders managed to be more affordable in the long run, but that did not make them more popular. And of course, the Russian Leicas...

History does not favour cheap clones.

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It's nice to think that there are many Ms being produced and sold. It's good that Leica is being successful. But the only things that really matters to me is that the M-P is a great camera with greet lenses, and that I have one, and that Leica's tradition of service and support for me has done me very well. 

 

New cameras, new models will come. I celebrate them but that doesn't mean I have to buy every one of them. :-)

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thats a lot of M's

 

If you sum up M9/M9-P M-E M240 and the monochrome, I'd bet that you are over the numbers made by M3  (must succesful 35mm at its times) and also by M6 (NOT together) ... so, in historical terms, one can conclude that Leica is still a decent manufacturer of 24x36 cameras, after all... ;)

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The Nikon and Canon rangefinders in their time were not cheaper than the Leica, the Contax more expensive. Only the Voigtlanders managed to be more affordable in the long run, but that did not make them more popular. And of course, the Russian Leicas...

History does not favour cheap clones.

 

are you aure that Canon and Nikon rangefinders were not cheaper than leica? I find that hard to believe. Then there are the fixed lens rangefinders: Canon made over one million of the QL17 model alone. In fact in the history of rangefinder cameras I would happily say without any doubt that is was the cheaper cameras that reigned supreme- and sold in huge numbers- far more than Leica ever produced. I have been dealing in second hand cameras and for every Leica that you see at an estate sale you see at least 250 Canonets. From my experience I would hazard to guess that such rangefinder cameras outweigh Leica camera 1000 to 1 or considerably more.

 

In the modern era Voitlander and Konica produced high quality optical RF cameras- that were a fraction of the cost of their leica counterparts. Voigtlander still does.

 

the argument that the optical RF is increddibly expensive and difficult to make does not really stand up. The commercial failure of the Konica Hexar RF had more to do with the near death of the rangefinder camera and the supremacy of the SLR than any massive expense Konica had producing their optical RF.

 

Finally all of this is not that relevant to the question of a digital RF camera in 2015. Leica has succesfully carved out a niche for itself in this area- and there is consequently growing renewed interst in RF cameras. This trend is mirrored in other areas where many once obsolete technolgies are finding new favour with a new audience. In Australia last year twice the number of vinyl records were sold as in the previous year and that figure is expected to continue to grow rapidly. This growth is driven primarily by young people.

 

As much as the idea of a Leica competitor is poo-pooed here I still think it is a possibility. We have seen Japanese manufacturers do very well recently by replicating the look and feel of vintage camera designs. Some of these new cameras have been conciously 'rangefinder like'. The fuji X cameras in particular.

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