Leica APS-C -- No more!

[lct]

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No offense intended of course  but expecting camera brands like Leica to behave like Sony or Fuji would be a bit naive IMHO. In small companies like this one cannot afford the luxury of losing money on one product line to compensate with another one. If your product does not sell with profit it has to go. Leica has been procrastisnating for too long on the R line that could not compete for lack of AF then. We may find this sad or unfair from a consumer's point of view but Leica did not do the same mistake on APS-C apparently. Won't prevent me to use my CL with pleasure in the years to come pending the arrival of new compact FF cameras hopefully.

[Le Chef]

42 minutes ago, lct said:

No offense intended of course  but expecting camera brands like Leica to behave like Sony or Fuji would be a bit naive IMHO. In small companies like this one cannot afford the luxury of losing money on one product line to compensate with another one. If your product does not sell with profit it has to go. Leica has been procrastisnating for too long on the R line that could not compete for lack of AF then. We may find this sad or unfair from a consumer's point of view but Leica did not do the same mistake on APS-C apparently. Won't prevent me to use my CL with pleasure in the years to come pending the arrival of new compact FF cameras hopefully.

Nobody is expecting Leica to behave like Sony or Fuji. The problem is they don’t even know how to behave like a luxury brand either. Incidentally luxury brands these days have rigorous discipline when it comes to investment, product development and marketing. Something Leica appears not to have. You could argue reasonably convincingly that the CL is a great product with a history of poor positioning, targeting and marketing. The SL line though appears to be an unnecessarily bloated and overweight system from camera bodies to lenses. The M is obviously a success as is the Q line. But is a 50% success rate good enough these days, particularly when the Q line is “one and done” with no lenses to sell beyond the initial sale.

[dfdann]

My CL also still works perfectly also with Tl,,M, Nikon, TT ,lenses. I expect that at 85  next week it may outlive me. My D1,M8, and C work perfectly also. 
Cheers, Dan

[lct]

21 minutes ago, Le Chef said:

Nobody is expecting Leica to behave like Sony or Fuji. The problem is they don’t even know how to behave like a luxury brand either. Incidentally luxury brands these days have rigorous discipline when it comes to investment, product development and marketing. Something Leica appears not to have. You could argue reasonably convincingly that the CL is a great product with a history of poor positioning, targeting and marketing. The SL line though appears to be an unnecessarily bloated and overweight system from camera bodies to lenses. The M is obviously a success as is the Q line. But is a 50% success rate good enough these days, particularly when the Q line is “one and done” with no lenses to sell beyond the initial sale.

Sure but your argument could play in both senses. In a free market economy, products not selling with profit must go. As for luxury brands with rigourous discipline yes... but . When a jeweller creates a new piece of jewellery, he hopes that it will sell well but if it fails he won't continue to manufacture it at a loss.

[Simone_DF]

1 hour ago, lct said:

No offense intended of course  but expecting camera brands like Leica to behave like Sony or Fuji would be a bit naive IMHO. In small companies like this one cannot afford the luxury of losing money on one product line to compensate with another one. If your product does not sell with profit it has to go.

Sorry but I disagree. We don't have the numbers of "poor sales", so this is speculation and we don't know how much money Leica lost on the CL. Probably it didn't sell well, but it had its shares of enthusiast owners, so I don't expect it to be a total failure either.

The main issue with Leica non-existing strategy is that when your product goes the way of the dodo with poor marketing communication (aka zero in the case of Leica), you alienate your customers. These customers will leave. You don't lose only a sale, you lose all sales over x amount of years to these customers. You lose selling them future camera generations, future lenses, accessories and everything else.

And the company risk ending up in a situation where it won't be able to launch a new product line, reducing company growth. 

Leica doesn't have the amount of cash of a Fuji or Sony and nobody expects Leica to be able to compete with these companies, but their current behaviour is myopic and will damage the company in the long run too. A middle ground would be more in the interest of Leica itself.

[Mr.Prime]

The danger for Leica is simple, their customers are old men and they are hoping to get older. It's great that the CL will work for many more years, along with the SL etc. Without new and younger buyers there's no future for Leica. Are these future buyers in China? Look at M-mount lenses such as TT artisans and 7artisans who make good lenses for excellent prices. How long before they make bodies for these lenses ?

Edited April 6, 2022 by Mr.Prime

[vanhulsenbeek]

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12 minutes ago, Mr.Prime said:

The danger for Leica is simple, their customers are old men and they are hoping to get older. It's great that the CL will work for many more years, along with the SL etc. Without new and younger buyers there's no future for Leica. Are these future buyers in China? Look at M-mount lenses such as TT artisans and 7artisans who make good lenses for excellent prices. How long before they make bodies for these lenses ?

Laowa/Venus has made an excellent 9mm lens for L.mount, and so has TTartisans. Let's hope they make more!

Fujifilm has a adult line for APS-C and is very popular and quite affordable. I do not see any demise of APS-c soon.

[baretta]

14 minutes ago, Mr.Prime said:

The danger for Leica is simple, their customers are old men and they are hoping to get older. It's great that the CL will work for many more years, along with the SL etc. Without new and younger buyers there's no future for Leica. Are these future buyers in China? Look at M-mount lenses such as TT artisans and 7artisans who make good lenses for excellent prices. How long before they make bodies for these lenses ?

Younger generation need a good jpg processing like film simulation on fuji and gr3….they dont want wasting their time with raw image. Easy to transfer to media social as fast as possible.  

[Simone_DF]

32 minutes ago, Mr.Prime said:

How long before they make bodies for these lenses ?

They don't need to. I bet most 7A and TTA users purchase these lenses to be used on mirrorless. Don't they sell these lenses also with an optional adapter? 

[Le Chef]

56 minutes ago, lct said:

Sure but your argument could play in both senses. In a free market economy, products not selling with profit must go. As for luxury brands with rigourous discipline yes... but . When a jeweller creates a new piece of jewellery, he hopes that it will sell well but if it fails he won't continue to manufacture it at a loss.

You're missing something in this. There's no argument about needing to be profitable - that's a given. The key is how to be profitable. The jeweler you mention, if they are smart, will show drawings and mockups of the new piece to existing customers to get a read. They may then make changes or even scrap the idea based on comments, thus saving them money they didn't need to lose or making more because the design was well-received before production.

[lct]

49 minutes ago, Le Chef said:

You're missing something in this. There's no argument about needing to be profitable - that's a given. The key is how to be profitable. The jeweler you mention, if they are smart, will show drawings and mockups of the new piece to existing customers to get a read. They may then make changes or even scrap the idea based on comments, thus saving them money they didn't need to lose or making more because the design was well-received before production.

I am as bad a jeweler as an armchair CEO i'm afraid. I can just see that Leica is still alive while many camera brands from my youth have disappeared.

[Simone_DF]

20 minutes ago, lct said:

I am as bad a jeweler as an armchair CEO i'm afraid. I can just see that Leica is still alive while many camera brands from my youth have disappeared.

If you end up placing all your eggs in one basket (the M), without a safety net (other product lines), what happens if the next M won't sell for a reason or another?

[Le Chef]

55 minutes ago, lct said:

I am as bad a jeweler as an armchair CEO i'm afraid. I can just see that Leica is still alive while many camera brands from my youth have disappeared.

Maybe Leica should study those brands to learn where they went wrong. There are always lessons to be learned from failures.

[lct]

45 minutes ago, Simone_DF said:

If you end up placing all your eggs in one basket (the M), without a safety net (other product lines), what happens if the next M won't sell for a reason or another?

S, SL, M, and Q make 4 eggs plus PanaLeicas. Any need for a 5th or 6th egg? Yes if it earns money but otherwise... 

Edited April 6, 2022 by lct

[lct]

16 minutes ago, Le Chef said:

Maybe Leica should study those brands to learn where they went wrong. There are always lessons to be learned from failures.

Not sure a 90y old lady has anything to learn about survival. Rather to teach if you ask me .

[Kim Dahl]

I wish Leica all the best.  But for me - right now - I can not see where Leica is going.  Maybe they will only make camera for rich people.  Not photographers who have to make a living from their camera.  They have stopped APSC, CL and TL lenses.
How many years is it  that SL prime lenses are delayed?  I first saw the prototypes in photokina in Cologne,  many many years ago.  If not all alarm bells are ringing now - then I do not know what.  M and Q should probably survive.  But Leica and L Mount...  Will Leica stop production for Leica SL lenses when (if) the last prime comes… Only Leica knows that.  But I fear it. In the group of SL size camera there is competition from many other brands.

[lct]

58 minutes ago, Kim Dahl said:

I can not see where Leica is going.  Maybe they will only make camera for rich people.  Not photographers who have to make a living from their camera.

Poor photographers make a living with Japanese cameras until they become rich photographers making ads for Leica . Just kidding but i can't seem to recall anything different since the seventies more or less...

Edited April 6, 2022 by lct

[Le Chef]

1 hour ago, lct said:

S, SL, M, and Q make 4 eggs plus PanaLeicas. Any need for a 5th or 6th egg? Yes if it earns money but otherwise... 

By the time you can afford a $5,500 Q2 will those buyers bother shifting to Leica? If you’re already entrenched in a mainstream brand like Canon, Sony or Nikon your purchase behavior and loyalty is likely to be pretty much set. If you don’t build a staircase for younger less affluent buyers then most of your sales are going to come from M owners who want something compact with the flexibility to autofocus or manual focus.

if your lowest priced camera mostly depends on those M owners then you’re not well placed to grow your business with new buyers. Leica looks more and more like a classic business school case of what not to do.

Frankly I couldn’t care less anymore. it’s purely an intellectual exercise. I have my CL and lenses, and a Q2 which will last me for a good while, but I can’t see myself buying another Leica with their track record.

[lct]

11 minutes ago, Le Chef said:

Frankly I couldn’t care less anymore. it’s purely an intellectual exercise. I have my CL and lenses, and a Q2 which will last me for a good while, but I can’t see myself buying another Leica with their track record.

I'm more optimistic but i don't care much either TBH. I just feel those discussions rather strange because i have not the feeling to hear anything new.  Is it you folks who are too young or me becoming too old? Don't answer please leave me my illusions . 

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[gotium]

2 hours ago, Kim Dahl said:

I wish Leica all the best.  But for me - right now - I can not see where Leica is going.  Maybe they will only make camera for rich people. .

Correct, going in a direction where at least I have a hard time justifying following them.

A shame for those of us who believed and invested in this system, and the company as a whole.