Leica Camera Sales Down 38%

[kenneth]

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I mentioned earlier in this post about Leica producing limited edition M commemorative models honouring such Icons as, say Madonna. Then I thought they could produce one called the "Leica virgin" which ties in with one of her early hits.

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[chris_livsey]

That would go down well with the collectors, they keep them "virgin" in the box anyway

[andybarton]

According to Leica's Annual report for fiscal year 2007-2008 (pdf), the average number of employees in that period was 500 wage earners and 491 salaried employees. That's an increase of 52 people from the year before, and a total of 991 employees.

 

I have already explained that that was a typo.

[rocheung]

Any financial deterioration will first impact this super high price consuming product. For the global atmosphere, the market tender to cut down cost in order to make their product competitve. Frankly speaking, Leica do it so late. Even I like Leica very much, but really it is a big burden to the users. We need to pay over US$150 to buy a hood, $800 to buy a motor drive, $400 for polarize. How can we go to take my cash out of my pocket??? I make choose to pay to Zeiss on some lens, e.g. wideangle, but it still give superior image for just 1/4 to 1/5 price of Leica. So I still think that loyalty still comes from money!!!

[SteveYork]

I suspect that people who can afford to buy the M8 aren't worried about the economic downturn. The really rich will continue to buy their Ferraris, Guccis and Diors and all the Noctilux goodies. The compact camera crowd might tighten their belts though.

 

One of the indications that has got me a bit unnerved here in the states is that many of the moderate wealthy I know are taking heed of the economic landscape -- they're not spending money as freely as they did. Maybe it has something to do with their house prices plummeting; stock market down and inflation up, with no answers on the horizon. Of course, this could just be me being cynical. The glass is half empty!!!

[SteveYork]

(a) Educate people about rangefinders as a unique and interesting way of capturing the world compared to an SLR system ( ie Mac OSX v Windows);

 

( Reduce the offering to just one M camera and one compact and leave the SLR market to the Canon and the others. The M camera should be full frame and the compact an improved version of Sigma’s DP1.

 

It begs the question whether a rangefinder makes sense in a digital world. Obviously, Leica needs to focus on where it has an edge. From the little I know (and that's VERY little), Leica still has the edge with its optics, right? Shouldn't they exploit that? Nikon mounts? Maybe there's some patent issues.

 

As a parenthetical note, my local dealer says that Leica's sale of their M camera was as expected, but what really was more then expected was the sale of lenses. Apparently, the digital M brought many new users to Leica's M, who purchased, not just one, but several lenses. And if this is true, then that's positive.