The Sony mirrorless market share in Japan

Yesterday BCNranking (translation here) posted the market shares of the mirrorless market in Japan. As you see Sony is the second top player. But how is Sony doing financially? Today Sony released that pdf document (Click to download). In short: The company lost $198 million in Q2 but that’s much lass than they amount they lost in Q1 ($312). But forecast data looks good and Sony should go back to profit by end of 2013. What do we know about the digital camera business?

The imaging division that includes Digital Imaging Products and Professional Solutions categories. had a slightly revenue drop from ¥219.1 (Q1) to ¥182.6 (Q2) but there is still an operating income plus of ¥2.6 (numbers in millions). Sony writes that “This decrease was primarily due to a significant decrease in unit sales of compact digital cameras reflecting a contraction of the low-end of the market resulting from popularization of smartphones as well as a slowing economy.“. But the forecats prediction says that “Sales are expected to increase and operating income is expected to increase significantly year-on-year.”

What is Sony’s goal for the imaging business? Here it is:
“Although the market for compact digital cameras continues to contract, Sony is working to restore profitability through reinforcement of its high value added products such as those that are differentiated through the use of highly competitive image sensors developed by Sony. For interchangeable single lens cameras, which are enjoying a steady expansion of sales, Sony aims to contribute even further to profitability by enhancing product competitiveness through the integration of network functionality and services. Image sensors contributed to profitability this quarter and, with the aim of further expanding profitability, Sony is making additional investments in production capacity to meet the growing demand for high performance image sensors in the growing market for mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets.”

P.S.: Unlike it is in Japan you can’t get real market shares data from Europe and US. To get a very basic and non scientific idea of the popularity you can still check the largest online store rankings:
US ranking (Click here), DE ranking (Click here), UK ranking (Click here), FR ranking (Click here).

As you know back in September Zeiss announced that they will release three new NEX lenses in mid 2013 (Source: Zeiss.)! All priced at around 1.000 Euro and with full electronic support (yep AF too!). And as you know the first three lenses are the 12mm f/2.8, 32mm f/1.8 and 50mm f/2.8. Zeiss also said that “Zoom lenses are an option that is still being considered“.

Now some of our sources had a talk with Zeiss representatives. And the unofficial goal for Zeiss is to launch these lenses in April 2013! Same rumor has been posted by Patrick from FujiRumors (the lenses will be available for the X system too). Finally some new high quality glass like the superb [shoplink 8450]Zeiss 24mm f/1.8[/shoplink]!

Back in September I asked you which lens you would buy. This were the results (If you haven’t voted yet than do it to see the results):

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P.S.: The lenses are designed to cover the APS-C circle and not the for FF NEX cameras like the [shoplink 14178]Sony NEX-VG900[/shoplink].

Sensor manufacturers are constantly working to increase the signal to noise performance, dynamic range and color reproduction quality. If you have more technical skills you may check out the two new Sony patents showing two ways to realign the single RGB pixels to increase the image quality: Patent one and patent two. In the past we saw other very “alternative” patents (like foveon alike pixel alignment and so on). From what I am hearing from my sources some of this paradigm changing sensors will see the light of day in a real camera by 2014.

Matt Ryan unveiled some details about the new Sony PL mount F55 camera:
“The New sony camera is the F5 ($22-$25,000 range)! They are skipping the 4 model number and going to 5…They are aiming for the C300/500/Scarlet market with this.
Compression Schemes:
50 Mbps XDCam @ 422
80 Mbps XAVCHD @ 422
120 Mbps iframe compressed not XD Cam
220 Mbps “SR” @ 422 (only on new “SxS Raw+” Memory cards…. these are new!)
You can only record the full 4k frame with the R5 SR Recorder, otherwise you will record windowed footage.
120 frames per second in HD (1080), codec: XAVCHD
No on board 4K. Must use R5 recorder using a NEW type of memory card to record 4K and/or RAW.
R5 Recorder Suggested Price at the moment is $19,000! Not to mention the recording media. May change before the release.
There is also an F55 4K camera coming too, and that is what Sony is calling the direct competitor to the Epic. They think the Epic is way behind the F65…Seriously…
They will also be announcing a new set of lenses much better than their previous ones and at a t2.0 (set of 6 made by a famous lens company exclusively for Sony)…
That’s all the info I have for now…”

Thanks Matt (and Oneguy for sending this)!

Click on the image to see the full size version.

We got three new NEX lenses from Sony. And it is time to repost the NEX lens roadmap to see what’s coming in 2013. There will be four new lenses but as you know the roadmap doesn’t include the three amazing Zeiss lenses, the 12mm f/2.8, 32mm f/1.8 and the 50mm f/2.8 macro. And we don’t have to forget that also Sigma, SLRmagic and probably other companies will release new lenses. 2013 may be the year where the NEX system becomes “mature”. Let’s see if Sony will also have the necessary resources to develop some Full Frame E-mount lenses for the [shoplink 14178]Sony NEX-VG900[/shoplink] and any future FF NEX!

Links to the three new E-mount lenses:
Sony E-mount 16-50mm Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK, Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH, and more links at Alphacameradeals .
Sony E-mount 35mm Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK, Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH, and more links at Alphacameradeals.
Sony E-mount 10-18mm Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK, Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH, and more links at Alphacameradeals.

Last week Sony announced a new product release event on October 30th. Sony unveiled on Facebook that the cameras will be anew 4K and 50Mbps 422 High Frame Rate F camera. Easy to guess that this will replace the discontinued F3 PL mount camera.

What I don’t know yet if if there will be an update for the E-Mount NEX-FS700 camera.

First a real news: Preorder of the A99 are now back at Amazon (Click here). And now an (impossible?) message from an anonymous source. Please be aware that I have no confirmation from trusted sources yet but I hope they will contact me after reading this post.

The message I got from the anonymous source said that “Sony dropped the pre order Cost of the A 99 from 2348 to 2099, and the pre order cost of the nex 6 with kit lens from 836 to 749.99 in the us”

The preorder costs are the ones paid by dealers and not by the final single buyer. If…and I repeat “if”(!) the rumor I got is correct this may will lead to a Sony A99 and NEX-6 price drop soon and probably your preorder will be charged less than you expected to pay for.  This may be Sony first reaction to compete against the low entry Canon 6D (specs and price here) and Nikon D600 (specs and price here) FF cameras. I am a bit more surprised about the NEX-6 price drop which honestly wasn’t bad at all.

I repeat it, for now I think the rumor has low chance to be correct. And no need to drop your preorders. If the rumor is correct they will simply charge you less when shipping the camera!

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Sony preorder list:
A99 body Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Jessops, Wex UK, Wex Germany, Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH and more links at Alphacameradeals.
A99 with kit lens links Alphacameradeals.
NEX-6 body Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK, Wex Germany Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH and more links at Alphacameradeals.
NEX-6 with kit lens Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Jessops, Wex Uk ,Wex Germany and more links at Alphacameradeals.

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Reminder (SR = Sonyrumor):
SR1=probably fake rumor
SR2=rumor from unknown sources
SR3=50% chance it is correct
SR4=rumor from known sources
SR5=almost certainly correct!