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How small is Nikon

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PhotoTraveler said:
Then you get to companies like Sony, much bigger than Canon, Cameras
are an even smaller part. Thus if Camera sales slide, Sony doesn't
have to panic much. Similar for Samsung and Panasonic. All giant
electronics houses not dependent on cameras.
Click to expand...
The trouble with Sony is they really don't have any of their products doing very well and haven't had them doing well for some time now. They're still stuck in the past when they made a huge name for themselves.
 
whvick said:
"Court papers suggest that Ritz Cameras owes over $40 million to its
two largest creditors: Nikon Inc. and Canon USA, with a further $8.4
million owed to Fujifilm USA, a subsidiary of which owns around a
third of the company. To put the $26.6 million owed to Nikon Inc.
into perspective, it would represent somewhere in the region of 20%
of Nikon Inc's expected annual operating income."

I was surprised that Nikon INC was not a much larger company....say
in the billions, not 130 million. I had pictured Nikon and Canon as
hugh multibillion dollar companies. Am I misunderstanding this? Is
this worldwide or just Nikon USA? Is Canon a lot bigger?

Some of you economic and business guys fill me in.
Thanks
whvick
Click to expand...
Nikon does not make a lot of the stuff that Canon makes, for example printers. It is a much smaller company. Recently Nikon withdrew from the eyeglass business as well. Since the USA is the biggest camera market in the world, and since Ritz is the largest camera store in the USA, it is not a surprise that Ritz owes Nikon so much money. It will definitely hurt Nikon a lot more than Canon, both because of the amount owed, and the % of its income the debt will represent.

Nikon made a big push last year to gain market share, by pushing inventory into the stores on credit. It will think twice about doing that again in the near future, because of the world wide recession. It may demand cash on delivery instead.
 
From the wikipedia article, these groups used to orbit around a large bank, for financing, not related to other company issues. With last couple of decades of consolidation in the financial market, even more now, these "groups" make even less sense.

But people keep repeating this, that Nikon is part or owned by Mitsubishi (the car company). The name of group originally comes from the homonimous bank.
--
Renato.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhlpedrosa/
OnExposure member
http://www.onexposure.net/

Good shooting and good luck
(after Ed Murrow)
 
rhlpetrus said:
From the wikipedia article, these groups used to orbit around a large
bank, for financing, not related to other company issues. With last
couple of decades of consolidation in the financial market, even more
now, these "groups" make even less sense.
Click to expand...
This is clarified much better on the mitsubshi.com web site.

http://www.mitsubishi.com/e/group/about.html
 
rhlpetrus said:
I think we'll see more consolidation in consumer lectronics sector in
the coming couple of years, maybe Nikon will join some other company,
but it's possible it'll survive well, since it has gained market
share in the compacts sector, lately, and is doing well in dslrs.
Click to expand...
Nikon WAS doing well in DSLR sales, but since their recent price increases on almost everything Nikon, sales have dropped dramatically.

DSLR's right now are more popular sellers than P&S cameras, but even the DSLR sales are declining fast.

Nikon is in for some rough seas . . . so is Canon and all of the rest.

In the last couple of months, I've noticed a big drop in sales of P&S cameras, yet DSLR's are still selling, but nowhere near as much as they were six months ago.

I suspect that we will see a big slowdown in new camera announcements for the next year or two.

The only reason we are seeing a bunch right now is because all the new models were rolling off of the assembly lines before this economic crunch hit.

All of these new models will probably be around for awhile . . .

--
J. D.
Colorful Colorado



Remember . . . always keep your receipt, the box, and everything that came in it!
 
Scales USA said:
rhlpetrus said:
From the wikipedia article, these groups used to orbit around a large
bank, for financing, not related to other company issues. With last
couple of decades of consolidation in the financial market, even more
now, these "groups" make even less sense.
Click to expand...
This is clarified much better on the mitsubshi.com web site.

http://www.mitsubishi.com/e/group/about.html
Click to expand...
Thanks, very interesting. It's more like a "society" of companies, the link is tradition and cultural endeavours. Only in Japan this would make sense. But it's pretty clear they don't have a super committee to run the system or any financial connections, thus it's not a corporation in the sense of western finances.

--
Renato.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhlpedrosa/
OnExposure member
http://www.onexposure.net/

Good shooting and good luck
(after Ed Murrow)
 
rhlpetrus said:
Scales USA said:
rhlpetrus said:
From the wikipedia article, these groups used to orbit around a large
bank, for financing, not related to other company issues. With last
couple of decades of consolidation in the financial market, even more
now, these "groups" make even less sense.
Click to expand...
This is clarified much better on the mitsubshi.com web site.

http://www.mitsubishi.com/e/group/about.html
Click to expand...
Thanks, very interesting. It's more like a "society" of companies,
the link is tradition and cultural endeavours. Only in Japan this
would make sense. But it's pretty clear they don't have a super
committee to run the system or any financial connections, thus it's
not a corporation in the sense of western finances.
Click to expand...
It's a bit more than just a 'society'. The origins of the keiretsu were in the zaibatsu, which were large conglomerates, Mitsubishi being one and at that time Nippon Kogaku was truly a subsidiary of Mitsubishi. After WW2 it was decreed that the Zaibatsu would be broken up, presumably to avoid Japanese industry becoming too competitive. Thus the Zaibatsu were broken up into keiretsu (which means fracture), which were much looser, at least in theory, with complex interrelated share holdings, which often go round in circles presumably to satisfy the requirement for the end of the conglomerates. I think it is highly unlikely that Nikon would be allowed to go bust by its shareholders. Although only a smallish part of the Nikon stockholders are directly named Mitsubishi companies, a much larger proportion has Mitsubishi links by second or third remove.

--
Bob

 
irish-george said:
Makes wafer steppers and slicers (you know, like what Canon buys to
produce sensors).
Click to expand...
They do make them, and they're one of the largest suppliers, but they're still not as big for Nikon as cameras and camera lenses. Nikon is now getting something like 2/3 of their total revenue- and more than 2/3 of their profits- from their imaging (i.e. camera and camera-related) segment. Nikon is probably the least diversified of the major camera makers.
irish-george said:
I had heard that Nikon was owned by
Mitsubishi...don't know if that is currently true or if it ever was.
Click to expand...
The Mitsubishi conglomerate was broken up after WWII, so Nikon has been an independent company for more than 60 years. OTOH, they're still part of the Mitsubishi "family" of companies, and they could probably get financial help if they were long-term healthy but suffering through a short-term cash problem.
--

As with all creative work, the craft must be adequate for the demands of expression. I am disturbed when I find craft relegated to inferior consideration; I believe that the euphoric involvement with subject or self is not sufficient to justify the making and display of photographic images. --Ansel Adams
 
whvick said:
"Court papers suggest that Ritz Cameras owes over $40 million to its
two largest creditors: Nikon Inc. and Canon USA, with a further $8.4
million owed to Fujifilm USA, a subsidiary of which owns around a
third of the company. To put the $26.6 million owed to Nikon Inc.
into perspective, it would represent somewhere in the region of 20%
of Nikon Inc's expected annual operating income."
Click to expand...
Nikon Inc is the US subsidiary of Nikon. Their income comes from the sales of Nikon cameras in the US (and, I believe, Canada). So, the Ritz hit is not 20% of Nikon, but closer to 20% of 20%.
whvick said:
I was surprised that Nikon INC was not a much larger company....say
in the billions, not 130 million.
Click to expand...
Nikon proper is. Nikon Inc is smaller than Nikon.
whvick said:
I had pictured Nikon and Canon as
hugh multibillion dollar companies. Am I misunderstanding this? Is
this worldwide or just Nikon USA? Is Canon a lot bigger?
Click to expand...
Nikon USA. And Yes.

And the subject of Mitsubishi has come up several times in this thread. Here's how it really works.

A keiretsu is a loose association of corporations that receive a major portion of their financing from the same bank. There used to be 6 big banks, each with between 100-300 corporations in their keiretsu. These were known as the "big 6 keiretsu". Mitsubishi keiretsu was unique in having the bank give a name both to the keiretsu itself and one of the largest corporations in it. Over the last 5 years, those banks paired up and merged, so now there are only 3 banks.

I've seen more than one analyst postulate that Konica/Minolta and Kyocera left the camera business because the bank mergers put two camera operations into the hands of the merged banks, so they kept only the more viable company.

And oddly enough, you keep hearing comments like keiretsu couldn't exist in the US, Europe, etc. But in Japan, the keiretsu have systematically loosened up for the last few decades, while in the US and Europe banks exert more control over corporations. So while it's true that the US and Europe don't have anything like the keiretsu at the height of their power, they do have conglomerations that resemble the keiretsu as they stand today.

And here's how it really, really, really works...

It's false the way it's often mentioned here. Some folks talk about Mitsubishi "owning" Nikon, in the sense of a wholly owned subsidiary, and others talk of the "Mitsubishi" that "owns" Nikon as if that Mitsubishi were either Mitsubishi Heavy Industries or Mitsubishi Motors. Neither of those concepts are correct.

There is monetary transfer, if Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is having a really good year, the bank may use profits from that to "pump" Nikon, or vise-verse. And there used to be a policy of the executives in the corporations belonging to the bank and the keiretsu as much as to the individual companies, so the bank might move a manager from Nikon to Mitsubishi Motors or to Kirin breweries...

The original "big six" keiretsu structure also clearly shows why Nikon and Canon will continue to dominate the photographic industry, and the rest will fall by the wayside...

Nikon is linked through their keiretsu to the Kirin brewery.

Canon is similarly linked to Sapporo beer.

Olympus and Fuji do not have the strong foundation of a link to a decent brewery, and instead are linked to the Asahi beverage company that put coffee beverages in vending machines, with Tiger Woods' picture on the cans.

Pentax and Sigma, lacking the strength of any decent alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage company, are obviously pretty much out of the game.

Sony has pharmaceutical connections (explaining both their focus on "anti-shake" technology and their creation of the "Memory Stick"), but whether or not this will insure their long term survival without an alcohol source of their own remains to be seen.

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Those numbers are completely wrong.

For fiscal 2009, a relatively lousy year for Nikon, the photo business alone (not including the stepper business or other businesses that Nikon is in) will generate 570 Billion Yen ($5.7 billion USD) and earnings of 35 billion Yen ($350 million USD) as projected by Nikon. However, Nikon has averaged the Yen at 100 for the entire fiscal year and only 90 for the last quarter. The Dollar closed today at over 97 Yen, so currency conversion is going much better for Nikon than they had planned, assuming it stays high. Just a few weeks ago, the Dollar bought only 90 Yen.
 
Tim the Grey said:
I thought Sapporo made beer?
Click to expand...
I thought I said that.
Tim the Grey said:
8^)
Click to expand...
;)
Tim the Grey said:
Beer and Photography. Financially interdependent since 1865?
Click to expand...
Exactly. Canon is in the same keireusu as Sapporo.

Nikon is in the same Keiretsu as Kirin.

Oddly enough, neither seems to be linked to stronger spirits.

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Others have said this, but just to be clear for people coming late to this thread:

A) Nikon Inc. is what folks around here like to call Nikon USA -- it's the U.S. sales subsidiary (for imaging and instruments) of Nikon Corp., which is the name of the Japanese parent company. Nikon USA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nikon Corp., and its financial results are "consolidated" into the results of Nikon Corp. So Nikon Corp's annual report includes revenue/profits from Nikon Inc. (USA). (The semiconductor manufacturing division of Nikon has a separate U.S. sales subsidiary called Nikon Precision Inc., which used to be, maybe still is, headquartered in Belmont, CA.)

B) Operating income is profit, not total sales (total sales is known to accountants as "revenue"). Nikon Inc.'s total sales (or revenues) are in the low billions of dollars. I think the exact figure for Imaging Division sales in the U.S. is available from Nikon's annual report, if you dig far enough.

C) Canon as a whole is about 4X-5X bigger than Nikon, and its camera business is almost twice as large (I'm going by memory because I don't have time to check the latest annual reports, but both of these figures can be determined exactly from the companies' respective annual reports.)
whvick said:
"Court papers suggest that Ritz Cameras owes over $40 million to its
two largest creditors: Nikon Inc. and Canon USA, with a further $8.4
million owed to Fujifilm USA, a subsidiary of which owns around a
third of the company. To put the $26.6 million owed to Nikon Inc.
into perspective, it would represent somewhere in the region of 20%
of Nikon Inc's expected annual operating income."

I was surprised that Nikon INC was not a much larger company....say
in the billions, not 130 million. I had pictured Nikon and Canon as
hugh multibillion dollar companies. Am I misunderstanding this? Is
this worldwide or just Nikon USA? Is Canon a lot bigger?

Some of you economic and business guys fill me in.
Thanks
whvick
Click to expand...
 
I think everybody missed the part of the original post in which the words "operating profit" was used. the post was NOT indicating the size of Nikon, but the likelyhood of serious fiscal damage done by the debt and potential loss against the financial depth of the firm, which is considerable.

--
Van
 
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