Pentax Still Came Last in 2007 DSLR Global Market Share

Here is a bit of an old news indeed, an Imaging Resource article, which was published earlier in April, talks about the global DSLR shipment worldwide in 2007 and the brand shares, according to the IDC figures:-

http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1207604859.html

The key paragraph is extracted and quoted as follows:-

"dSLR growth reached 41 percent as shipments climbed to 7.5 million units. Canon was again number 1 with share of 43 percent, yet lost another 4 points on top of the 5 points the firm lost in 2005. Nikon was second with share of 40 percent, gaining 7 points from 2005. Sony again placed third, with a share of 6 percent, unchanged from 2005. Olympus, despite having a broader product lineup, failed to make it out of 4th place with a share of 6 percent, just behind Sony.", which simply just tells:

- Canon had 43% of the global market share in 2007;
- Nikon had 40%;
- Sony had 6%;
- Olympus had 6% (also, but just behind Sony, it is said)

Pentax is not mentioned in the report. But a quick subtraction reveals that the remaining market percentage left by all other DSLR vendors is just 5%. I bet Pentax wouldn't have acquired all the 5%, would they?

Since Pentax had yet already (virtually) come last in both 2006 and 2005 DSLR global share, according to what the sources of the published market reports told, Pentax has actually been ranked no. 5, or virtually the last for consecutive three years now (now in 2007 maybe even lower than the truly minority brands like Fujifilm, Panasonic and Leica, whom do not have a system of their own, as Pentax is not even mentioned this time, unlike in the previous two years). Really too bad and very sad.. :-((

So, afterall, the end results once again tell it all: The K10D and the K100D/Super were not selling well in 2007 globally. And now, from what I can observe and learn from different indicators and sources, the K20D and K200D are not even as "interested" as when the K100D and K10D were (just forget about the K100D Super in the second half of 2007, which was just a DSLR which rarely sold, as I predicted in the very beginning). If this situation and trend continues, I feel rather pessimistic if Pentax can survive and go on with her "business" in the coming days, not even to mention nobody except Pentax or Hoya knows what Hoya has been thinking and will decide to do in the next fiscal years, when the big boss Hoya looks back and is to be doing the company's (annual?) business review.

After all the bad news, what I really want to point out is without some kinds of minimal market insights, marketing creativity (e.g., this for what I suggested) and adequate R&D plus manufacturing/QC improvement initiatives and efforts (so as to resolve various problems as widely reported and upkeep their technologies and products with the competitors), there is no hope, really, I can surely tell.