The Samsung scenario - ponderings and/or recommendations

The only ways to have a chance today involve either launching a system, essentially, fully formed right from the start, or finding some unique and disruptive niche.  We have not seen, apart from GoPro's, much if any of the latter.

So, to compete with Canon and Nikon, you have to offer a solution to at least 90% of the possible shooting scenarios as soon as consumers want that solution, and that's a tall order.  That means a complete pro and amateur lens and camera set, and a lighting solution.  Pro zooms, consumer zooms, pro primes, consumer primes, exotic telephotos, macros, shift lenses, TTL flash and triggering systems, etc...  Or, you have to solve a specific set of problems for a customer group who'll pay enough to warrant catering to them - less diverse of an overall offering but critical to a specific set of users.

If you consider that Canon and Nikon sell at least 2/3rds of all the ILC cameras in existence, and Sony might sell another 10-15%, that leaves maybe 20% of the market for everyone else.  It's actually enough if you're a dedicated camera company offering a complete set of solutions to your customers (be they a broad general group, or a smaller subset with specific needs.) But you have to want to be in the space, and I'm not sure that's true of Samsung.

In some ways being a powerful conglomerate with multiple business lines is worse.   They generate so much revenue in other business lines that it gets hard to justify fighting for a bigger piece of crowded market, especially if they have a future selling some of the underlying technology/components to the whole sector - sensors, ASICs, memory, displays...

I think they're done with retail camera sales, it's just a matter of selling off inventory, but I'm almost certain they will take on a bigger position as a supplier to dedicated camera manufacturers/divisions.