James McBee
Forum Enthusiast
HOW in the heck could a tripling of profits be bad for a company? I don't know crud about economics (I'm the first to acknowledge it) but that just doesn't make sense.
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Nikon profits triples
- Thread starter CraigH
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James McBee
Forum Enthusiast
He stated earlier that he only cares about dollar signs. Personally I think this proves that he's an idiot. There is good money to be made in photography, true...but not as good as in other trades.
Secondly, to be a "selfish hedonist" one still needs some kind of a soul...Not just a cruddy internet persona.
Secondly, to be a "selfish hedonist" one still needs some kind of a soul...Not just a cruddy internet persona.
Alex Permit
Senior Member
I posted the financials of both companies since there is so much confusion on this topic.
You CAN'T compare raw sales of all of canon to all of nikon. This is a meaningless comparison. Of course canon is a bigger company with more resources. The also have to apply those resources to a lot more products then Nikon.
The raw sales figures of the two camera divisions are more interesting. Canon's revenues are twice Nikons. Yes, that is more, but nikon certainly can compete.
Daimler_Chyrsler revenues are triple BMW's. But BMW is quite capable of competeting with Daimler.
You CAN'T compare raw sales of all of canon to all of nikon. This is a meaningless comparison. Of course canon is a bigger company with more resources. The also have to apply those resources to a lot more products then Nikon.
The raw sales figures of the two camera divisions are more interesting. Canon's revenues are twice Nikons. Yes, that is more, but nikon certainly can compete.
Daimler_Chyrsler revenues are triple BMW's. But BMW is quite capable of competeting with Daimler.
Alex,
I have some experience with management accounting. It's difficult to compare companies unless they are using the same accounting basis. Do they both write off R&D on a current basis?
Bear in mind that the results in any one period can be affected by the product cycle. Since the product cycles are about two years, the results at the end of a product cycle will be less favourable.
Etc etc etc.
The only thing that interests me is Nikon's DSLRs. I am not interested in Nikon's strong specialities like industrial optics. This appears to be the shipping forecast for DSLR for 2005. D70 and 300D are about equal. D2X is a bit more than the two Mk IIs. Canon has the 20D and we will see what Nikon's response will be. It looks like both brands will have about the same volume in 2005.
Hope this helps.
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Jim
Alex Permit
Senior Member
Canon is listed on the NYSE, and as such follows US accounting standards. Nikon does not. However, all the raw data (captial expenditures, R&D, depreciation) are in each set of financials.
Raw profit numbers are generally a meaningless. The revenues (ie sales) should be comparable, and is the more insteresting number
Raw profit numbers are generally a meaningless. The revenues (ie sales) should be comparable, and is the more insteresting number
Michael Klar
Leading Member
... listed on the NYSE and all we can hope for that in all of the numbers reported they aren't hiding something.... Look at the operating expenses, in spite of the fact they have experienced significant growth the operating expenses are the same as the year before?!
Right, but take a look at the percentage their camera and lens sales represent to their total revenue. Then look a Nikon's (although I'm not sure if I understand how this release can be called an operating statement) percentage of "Imaging Product" sales, it is more than half of the total sales. Now regardless how you slice this, a company ought to have a greater focus on the market segment that is their highest revenue generator and profitable. Well, at least that is how I would see it...
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Michael
James McBee
Forum Enthusiast
But aside from cameras a lot of Nikon's profit comes from microscopes right? Would that be considered imaging (I imagine it would). I'm not an authority on Nikon's financials, but I don't think that cameras are the only thing that their imaging devision would be responsible for.
Michael Klar
Leading Member
I believe that falls under the "Instruments" category, which is marginally profitable and constitudes less than 10% of their revenues.
ChromeLight
Senior Member
Actually, it's not money, it's the people that matter. With a fraction of Microsoft's resources Apple was easily able to build OS X in only a few years into a world class operating system. For all we know Canon's noise reduction could be the result of the work of a single scientist and not a huge budget, as eveyone thinks. Apple got lucky with having Avie Tevian (wrong spelling) as head of OS development .Bill gates regards Avie is one of the top five OS designers in the world and for years tried to hire him away from Steve Jobs. Kodak has been hiring away lots of talented people to Rochester in the past few years to fuel their growth in digital. I don't know what Japanese business or engineering culture is like. But if Nikon needs to hire more people and talented people, I doubt they lack the funds to do so.
Alex Permit
Senior Member
operating margins, and the like. Accountants can turn those numbers into anything they want to (within reason). This is not a stock trading forum, this is a Photography forum. Raw sales numbers and R&D are the areas to focus on.
Canon sells more cameras, but not by an order of magnitude. Nikon is a very powerful, very viable competitor.
I'm a photo hobbiest who happens to own A Canon DSLR, but respects nikons ergonomics. I'm also a professional in the financial industry, and I find threads talking about Nikons financial demise laughable.
Canon sells more cameras, but not by an order of magnitude. Nikon is a very powerful, very viable competitor.
I'm a photo hobbiest who happens to own A Canon DSLR, but respects nikons ergonomics. I'm also a professional in the financial industry, and I find threads talking about Nikons financial demise laughable.
Jim Cullen
Leading Member
Hooray someone with a bit of sense, and a Canon user a that.
I may have to change my views on these Canon users and until some of them slip under the radar with stupid statements, I'll hold my view that they maybe they are a valuable part of the picture taking community, instead of some sort of cult with a speriority complex.
DigialPowerShot
Leading Member
"D2X is a bit more than the two Mk IIs. " lol
l_ombre_jaune
Senior Member
nikon is an optic cie, they make steppers, eye lens, microscope and whatever. The camera division is not their main product.
looking at the Pope post the difference in gross profit between Canon and Nikon does not bother me. But the return in capital is a problem. Now before making a judgement we need to know why this is hapening. For exemple if a cie is heavily investing in production tooling and research a lower return margin is normal.
oh, and i'm not a nikonian, i'm a nikonite
that find the 1dsII mighty fine but I do not have the budget to get one so there would be no point in changing system. G. Jobin
Though you're right atht throwing people at a problem doesn't usually get the problem solved faster or better. That said, OSX is heavily based on Free BSD and therefore Apple didn't start from scratch. Plus, after having used OSX for the last year, I have to say that the GUI is lacking in flexibility compared to XP or W2K3. Forinstance, compare what's available when you right-click an object in XP vs. the options when you crtl-click an object in OSX. There's many other examples of this too.
I'm still glad I bought a Powerbook instead of a PC laptop but Apple could make the GUI a lot richer.
I'm still glad I bought a Powerbook instead of a PC laptop but Apple could make the GUI a lot richer.
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Jim
l_ombre_jaune
Senior Member
there's no belief in accounting. You know or you do not know in what categorie they put it ?
G. Jobin
l_ombre_jaune
Senior Member
while I would be enclined in believing what you wrote it always makes me wonder why people would write or say things without any source to support their claims.
G. Jobin
You can't just compare available resources without profit trends, which is what the original poster did. And no, one quarter is does not make a trend, but indicates signs of improvement, especially if you look at the company's recent quarterly reports.
You didn't understand my response. I did not claim that his "opinion" had anything to do with how Nikon conducts its business. I simply drew a comparison of how his type of "reasoning" reflects the same type of reasoning used in my examples above.
Actually, it does matter. His argument for future viability resides in the revenue numbers in his post. He also explicitly states that "Its only a matter of time before their lack of financial strength really begins to hurt them badly in the marketplace." In order to analyze a company's future viability in a specific industry segment (or as he says "marketplace"), you must analyze their capital committment to that industry segment and its importance to the company's success, as well as the profitability of that segment. Overall revenue alone does not imply future viability of a company. Until you account for profits and expendures in all the industry segments a given company is involved in, as well as the factors I mentioned above, you will not have an accurate measure of the overall future viability of the company let alone it's future viability in a given industry.
Disparity can easily be attributed to different market segments and different price points. And I never said that quality was the only factor that goes into a purchase decision. What I did address was his statement that "Nikon is supporting its marketshare with its brand name and reputation alone" is a truly asinine statement. Your assertion that "quality is just one of the many issue that goes into that decision" backs this up.
Sigh. You misinterpreted my statement and made an false assumption regarding "quality and junk." I be more definitive. When I said "junk" I was referring to products that have a high failure rate. Quality refers to products with a low failure rate. I apologize for not being specific in my original post. Sanyo sells more TV's than Sony because they have an acceptable quality level. If they did not, then their high rate of return would lead retailers to drop the brand. Ford outselling Porsche, Lexus and Mercedes is not a quality issue. Ford makes quality products as defined above, as well as the other brands you mentioned. If Ford consistently made junk products like say, a Yugo, then you would see consumer abandonment.
So yes, it is about quality versus junk, as I stated further on in my reply: "If Nikon or Canon produced junk cameras, they'd both be a distant memory in the camera industry."
Again, I defined "junk" above in a way that any consumer can understand. Your tactic of pulling out a quote out of context from a complete statement hardly leaves you in a position for judguing "strawman" arguments.
RecalcitrantRon
Senior Member
As I recall, Enron was a publicly traded company too. So much for reliance on the accounting.
I am NOT suggesting that Canon is "cooking the books", just pointing out that there is a whole lot more to a company than a financial statement.
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Just my nickels worth.
Happy Snappin'!
Ron
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http://www.pbase.com/recalcitrantron
FCAS Member No. 68
pbase supporter
D Seventy
I am NOT suggesting that Canon is "cooking the books", just pointing out that there is a whole lot more to a company than a financial statement.
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Just my nickels worth.
Happy Snappin'!
Ron
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http://www.pbase.com/recalcitrantron
FCAS Member No. 68
pbase supporter
D Seventy
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