Nikon exceeds forecast

According to Reuters, Nikon has exceeded expectation by boosting shipments of Digital SLR cameras by about 35 percent year-on-year in April and May 2006. This puts Nikon on track to beat its annual estimate.

The Nikon's factory in Thailand, which produces the popular Nikon D50, D70s and D200 digital SLR models, is running at full capacity to meet world-wide demand. Unless there are problems with their current supply chain it looks like Nikon is going to have an excellent year as their efficiencies are at its maximum level.

Nikon Senior Managing Director Makoto Kimura says:

"Conditions for all three models are very tight worldwide. We can sell as many as we can produce,"

Kimura said its performance in April and May had put the firm on a pace to exceed its forecast for digital SLR shipments to rise 30.6 percent to 1.75 million units this financial year to March. That forecast was unveiled in May.

"We estimated growth of about 30 percent, but we are now moving at a pace that would allow us to beat that," he said.

Nikon will be facing strong competition from Sony, Pentax, Panasonic and Olympus in the next few months as these newcomers especially Sony has their aim of gaining Nikons No.2 spot. Again Kimura has this to say:

"I consider them both to be a threat. They may not have a big impact in the short-term of one or two years, but from a long-term perspective of three to five years we will have to watch very closely the kind of products they bring to market," he said.

The future trend with DSLR will be a reduction in price with current technology. The end result will be the introduction of new low cost models and may include the rumored EOS 3000D or even the Nikon D30.



Source