The Camera Business
The number of cameras sold each year in the United States is growing--but slowly. Since 1972, the average annual growth rate has been just 1.9%, dropping to 1.5% in the past five years, said Ian Robinson, an analyst in Cambridge, Mass. “The population in the key age groups and the economy--those are the two factors that determine camera sales,” he said.
Market saturation is making it especially difficult for Japanese camera makers to raise prices, said Michael P. Goodson, an analyst at First Boston. “The rising yen has really hurt an already hurting market.”
Nikon has run short of professional-quality manual lenses, provoking angry protests from professional photographers. Much of the demand for such lenses had been satisfied by clandestine, gray market imports from countries with weak currencies. But the dollar’s fall abruptly dried up this source last summer, and Nikon Inc., the Garden City, N.Y.-based U.S. distributor, was unprepared for the sudden surge in demand, said Carroll C. Seghers, marketing manager for promotions.
Nikon’s warehouse normally holds three to four months of inventory, but the company suddenly found that it “had four lenses on hand. It looked like we’d been robbed,” he said. The factory in Japan needs six to 12 months to fill an order.
Complaints from camera dealers and professional photographers have prompted Nikon to launch an expensive credit and replacement program. Photographers who ask for one of three sizes of high-priced manual lenses are sold an identical autofocus lens immediately and then may turn in the autofocus after March for full credit toward the purchase of a manual lens.
Storks are good omens for camera makers as well as diaper services. New parents typically spend $222 on photographic equipment and processing within a year of a new arrival in a family, according to a 1985 projection by New York-based American Baby magazine.
The cost of camera gear is exceeded only by charges for nursery furniture, diapers, infant formula, clothing and baby food. By comparison, toys for the tot run only $100 in the first year, the magazine found.
