Me tooJust read that. I can hardly believe I'm going to say this but I agree with Thom 100% there.
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Done with Fuji and Adorama forever...
- Thread starter SilverEagle1962
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Let's be real here. My pre-order in the UK came through with no issues and I can source black or silver versions of the 100RF today, in Europe and the UK. I don't believe that's because product has been redirected from the US market, as that's rather complicated to do, and would reinforce the argument around tariffs in any case. You're right about there being a bad actor here, though, and his career went downhill since the high of his Home Alone cameo.
UsherFellig
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Well, I'm not declaring or committing to an opinion that this is some cunning stratagem by them to leverage people's deposit money or whatever. Or OTOH to an opinion of, "Poor Fuji they're simply overwhelmed with more orders than they could foresee." I don't think there's enough evidence as to what it is.
But I do think there is convincing evidence it is not limited to the US and is not about the US tariff situation. They have every right to change pricing or redirect product to other markets in response to the quixotic-chaotic US tariff mess. But multiple models are unobtainium elsewhere internationally.
It's been since the X100V that I would not buy on preorder any product made by this company. Whether deliberately induced or not, the whole mass phenom of longing and frustration around these kinda-cool-but-not-really-that-special products is one I find degrading and repellant. Like people lining up for blocks and getting into fisticuffs over iphones.
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It’s certain your gesture won’t go unnoticed by them.
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Fuji has already produced more units of the X100VI than the X100V over the latter’s entire lifetime. Fuji invested significant capital that doubled initial manufacturing capacity for the VI, from 7,500 units to 15,000.
They have since invested in significant additional capacity.
Given that demand continues to significantly outpace supply, wouldn’t the “cunning” move be to just raise prices?
One correction. Thom says (not yet corrected as of 8:15AM PST),
- Fujifilm — announced that at least temporarily, the X100VI, GFX100RF, and X-M5 will not be available (they're made in China)."
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Bob aka BobsYourUncle
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Cunning maybe, but imo not smart:
1. If they are already planning for a succesor, why increase the price, setting the price for the successor as well.
2. Likewise, rumors will soon surface about the successor and shy away those who want the latest and greatest. If anything, they should lower the price and keep producing the VI after the VII version is out. Some wil be happy with the VI at a lower price than the successor. Is the V being produced and sold at what price and backordered?
3. if they will take longer to replace the VI, why risk shying away customers and make the competion more attractive pricewise or trigger development of competitive cameras?
Those would be my considerations.
I am sure the Fuji-shareholders will have discussed this gesture with Fujifilm CEO already and it will now all be sorted.
SilverEagle1962
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:-D
Also 007 agent is involved , he was briefed and his Auston Martin is ready and equipped.
Macro guy
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Torrential downpour begins with a single drop
It is highly unlikely anyone from Fuji will even know about someone selling their camera and lenses .
If I can sell all the units that come off the line and maintain a backorder without shipping a single unit to the US clown show - why would I mess with the US? I expect that is covered in MBA 101. DJI has come out and announced that their new professional drone will not be available in the US. Can anyone blame them?
UsherFellig
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There were some kind of one-quizzical-eyebrow-raising comments in MAP Camera Japan's writeup with that top ten sales list for the month of April that I linked upthread. It's their English translation, but I still wondered if I was seeing the Japanese faculty for indirect commentary or indirectly droll wit, in action. The writeup blabbed a bit about each camera on the list and there were some oddly phrased cryptic remarks about the unavailable GFX100RF.
In contrast to less-cryptic remarks about #1 entry Z5ii that glowed about how supply could have proved iffy but Nikon "worked very hard" and assured plenty of product was available.They wrote that there was "a huge number of reservations" and "We were very worried" due to certain other new model releases, but "the manufacturer worked very hard this time and we were able to get the much talked about new model into everyone's hands." Finishing the Z5ii notes with this: "However, while we have often felt frustrated by the lack of supply recently, this time was a very fulfilling and busy time for us staff."
Followed by these comments about #2 entry the X100VI. After noting that the Z5ii was #1 by a large margin versus X100VI next down on the list, they wrote of the X100VI, "Many people may wonder how it managed to achieve such a high ranking given the continued unstable supply situation." Followed by this: "We hope that the manufacturer will create a situation where normal orders can be accepted as soon as possible."
Definitely there is some choice hometown inside-baseball camera industry gossip to be had there. What wouldn't I give to get the tea over robatayaki from one of the inside characters at MAP.
https://news.mapcamera.com/maptimes/2025年4月-新品・中古デジタルカメラ人気ランキング/
In contrast to less-cryptic remarks about #1 entry Z5ii that glowed about how supply could have proved iffy but Nikon "worked very hard" and assured plenty of product was available.They wrote that there was "a huge number of reservations" and "We were very worried" due to certain other new model releases, but "the manufacturer worked very hard this time and we were able to get the much talked about new model into everyone's hands." Finishing the Z5ii notes with this: "However, while we have often felt frustrated by the lack of supply recently, this time was a very fulfilling and busy time for us staff."
Followed by these comments about #2 entry the X100VI. After noting that the Z5ii was #1 by a large margin versus X100VI next down on the list, they wrote of the X100VI, "Many people may wonder how it managed to achieve such a high ranking given the continued unstable supply situation." Followed by this: "We hope that the manufacturer will create a situation where normal orders can be accepted as soon as possible."
Definitely there is some choice hometown inside-baseball camera industry gossip to be had there. What wouldn't I give to get the tea over robatayaki from one of the inside characters at MAP.
https://news.mapcamera.com/maptimes/2025年4月-新品・中古デジタルカメラ人気ランキング/
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At HP, there were stories about product management saying, "if you design this, we can sell a hundred or two." Sure enough, it was two.
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Hilarious!
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Of course not, just as a single drop doesn't make a torrential downpour. However, when enough people have had it with the shenanigans, Fuji will take notice.
Forecasting is hard for any company. I spent most of my time at Fairchild as Director of Research which supported all our product lines, cameras, electronic warfare, communications and telemetry systems, communications security and finally special projects (classified).
Fairchild was not a true consumer company, we were more or less an international defense electronics company with about half of our product lines developed under contract based on the unique technology we had developed in house. The other half were semi commercial systems cobbled together with our technology and systems we previously had delivered. We had a large R&D budget and we had to be very smart about how we allocated it. That allocation was based on projections of the program managers for each business unit. The requirements list was always at least twice as long as the funds available which should be the case of every successful company.
The PM's had to work with the customers to get their requirements and understand how willing the customer was to invest. That investment was normally done through competitive development contracts so our PM's needed to address and specify the funds needed to support and win those competitive development contracts. Not all of that came out of the R&D budget but there was usually a component that required in-house R&D.
It was a continuous process with most of the PM's holding weekly meetings within their division to address, identify new opportunities and define new requirements. At Fairchild that resulted in monthly meetings with the PM's from each product lines, R&D and the the director of engineering (he needed to insure he had the resources) and the CEO and CFO.
While Sherman Fairchild was gone by my days at Fairchild, his process remained in place as did his culture and hand picked senior management and BOD. Sherman Fairchild was a master at predicting a complex market. Even with that, it is still can be characterized as "intelligence crystal ball gazing," No matter how good your are, there will be some misses - both projections that don't materialize and those whose impact are grossly under estimated that result in the whole company scrambling to meet the demand.
A good example was back in the late 1980's we were working with Lockheed on developing a drone system. Lockheed was building the airframe and we were developing the coms and telemetry links and imagery payload and imagery analysis system. Westinghouse was involved in developing the imaging radar payload and radar processing subsystem. At that time the US military was anti-drone - as one retired AF general said, "you don't get promoted to a bird Col in this man's AF by joysticking a drone around the sky." My how times have changed. However, Israel had bought in to the use of intelligence drones and were pushing hard on the technology. Our projections were that Israel would be the initial customer and we knew how many they would order and additional demand would grow at a slow and steady pace. All production estimates were based on that.
Then when the first few are delivered to Israel after people saw what could be done with them, other countries, middle eastern and European started banging on the door wanting drones. The demand completely outstripped the projections not only Fairchild but the entire consortium of Fairchild, Lockheed and Westinghouse. It didn't matter if we could provide our part if Lockheed couldn't deliver the airframes fast enough.
We all had to scramble for a few years. However, our management took a lot of calls from angry customers getting their butts chewed because of their unrealistic demands on our production line. Or as to quote Werner von Braun, “Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month.”
At the end of the day "the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry." Good planning with accurate knowledge of the market place can mitigate it happening but it cannot prevent it. It seems that Fuji PM's were not as good reading the tea-leaves of the X100VI demand or the demand that would meet the GFX100RF. Maybe Fuji PM's were too conservative or maybe they need to invest in hiring a psychic. They will need to scramble but just like the pressure put on von Braun in the early days of space flight, unrealistic demand cannot be satisfied overnight.
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Truman
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I love to hear old war stories like that.
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What shenanigans? Under-estimating demand, and/or not investing more capital under uncertainty, in a very risky world?
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