An insight into the current state of Canon USA and its partners

Del Paso said:

This is right.
I almost bought one, but then came the R3 with Eye Control AF, and the first rumors about its implementation into a future R5 II. My carrying system excludes the use of gripped bodies, so I decided to wait, meanwhile "amortising" the EOS R.
I wanted Eye AF, my thumb, middle finger and index having grown insensitive! Thanks to hand surgery, they are now cured.
But my R5 II time is coming!
PS: just waiting for Panamoz to start selling them.
PPS: RF 2,8/15-35 Panamoz - Euro 1700
Regular dealers F/D: Euro 2650
Guess from whom I bought mine...

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The R5 is just so good. If the R5ii is even better, then you will have

From a retailer perspective, the article surely makes sense, given these margin numbers are right. However, we all know the electronics retail in general is dying, even bigger retailers like Bestbuy are struggling. The future is online and wether your nostalgia likes it or not, this is where the market is ultimately heading.

From a customer perspective, what's the problem? Getting overstock items for $1000 less (like the R5 rebates we seen last Black Friday) is great, with 1 year warranty even better. I honestly don't care if that hurts retailers who sent gear back ‍
The article sounds to me like the author is siding with retailers because he's mad he paid the full price.

From a strategy viewpoint, it makes a lot of sense to discount items by so much. One reason for instance, you got Sony selling competitive gear with EDU discounts or cashback, that Canon doesn't. But the R5 and R6II are simply overpriced regarding their direct competitors (A7RIV, A7IV, Nikon Z7II, Z6II) and that's not even counting discounts. And I know this and that spec differ and they dont shoot 30fps or whatever, but it doesn't change the fact that they are direct competitors for the generic Bestbuy customer. Who just looks at the megapixels and if they can do 4K video.

If Canon wants to remain No 1, they have to continue fighting for the customer, not for the retailer.

Have you heard of canon making an r5c mark 2?

webphoto said:

Canon is doing so well. Why did they fire so many people? It reminds the downfall of Boeing, letting good and old engineers go to please stockholders.

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Downfall of Boeing? Last I checked Boeing is still flourishing over there in Washington and have plenty of orders to fill

Can anyone enlighten me about the "cease and desist from Canon USA" part. Do we have an article on that matter?

Del Paso said:

my thumb, middle finger and index having grown insensitive! Thanks to hand surgery, they are now cured.

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, this is very goods news.

Richard CR said:

yeah I'm not sure either. that was the part that was going to be a "Richard hit piece"
are those marketshare numbers accurate? if Canon USA calls it a sale and it sits on a retailers shelf for 6 months .... but Canon USA goes - hey that's a sale.

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I thought the market share numbers were based on the number of units SHIPPED. If that is the case when they are sold would be irrelevant.

In terms of revenue if they count it as a sale once it hits the retailer it would just pull the revenue forward as they couldn't count the actual sale if it happens later in a different reporting period.

If the retailer returns it Canon carries a negative that offsets the original sale. Then when its sold as refurbished they get the lower revenue.

From my corporate days their isn't a way to "game' the numbers. But what it does is allow you to essentially move the "sale" price over the refurbished price giving the appearance of higher pricing in the retail market.

YouTuber Ordinary Filmmaker made a video addressing the Canon Rumors article and adding his 2 cents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4SB6Bw75kU&t=302s

He was able to speak to Rudy Winston who seems to be beloved by most and was blindsided by the firing.

He confirms Canor Rumors experice that Canon USA is dismissive and arragonat. He says he's reach out to retailers small and large and gotten the same feedback. He notes they say they might see a Sony reps 5 times a year in person and get more email and social media communicatios as well. But when it comes to Canon Reps they will be lucky to see them once a year. Sony is far more agressive and he notes "these are their words not mine"

He is a Canon shooter that promotes Canon on his channel. He says that Sony and Nikon have reached out to him offering him discounts and personal appearances to get him to pay more attention to their products. His main source of revenue is Canon preorder affiliate links. He says his preorders for Canon products reach in the millions. But when he wants to reach out to Canon its like an "abyss". Canon USA says talk to Canon Canada (where he is) and Canon Canada just ignores him.

He goes futher into his opinion on the state of Canon but I let him speak for himself.

But this is a guy that loves Canon cameras, makes a YouTube channel focused on Canon with tons of their products that he has purchased in the background and there is clearly some frustration.

Today's incredibly generous and often abused return policies (think Amazon or Walmart) have only made managing production and inventory incredibly more complex and difficult for all manufacturers. And it can’t help when consumers order a new product from multiple sources and then cancel orders after one is the first to deliver.

CJaurelius said:

YouTuber Ordinary Filmmaker made a video addressing the Canon Rumors article and adding his 2 cents.

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Yeah, the guy who completely misrepresented the recent data on market share. Did he ever retract that false information? His 2 cents on anything aren't worth even that.

Richard CR said:

why wouldn't they? how do you think they normally do refurbished gear? I would think that taking a unit out of a box and putting it into a different box does not take a significant amount of time. Repairing cameras and certifying them for sale I would imagine takes a lot more time.

There is a TON of inventory out there - we can't mention who but we did have some pretty deep conversations with retailers in the USA.

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I see you deleted the bulk of my post. so if an honest conversation can't be had, i won't continue on this conversation

Canon Rumors Guy said:

Consumers go into stores, spend an hour with a sales person behind the counter and go home and buy these refurbs. Consumer "wins", Canon "wins"... The bricks and mortar retailer absorbed most of the cost of that transaction.

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No. Consumer considers going to their local camera store, and finds out that it closed many years ago.

Canon sold 2.88 million interchangeable-lens cameras last year. Compared to that, it's safe to say that the number of cameras sold by Canon-direct is trivial.

Canon Rumors Guy said:

One issue is the financial data is Canon Inc., not Canon USA.

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Local subsidiaries need to report financials within that tax jurisdiction but aren't separated within the parent company/fiduciary's figures... unless they are a separate business unit wholly within one country.

The inventory comment was global but could have been predominately in one country. The US has this concept of multiple pre-orders and then cancel them once one is delivered... and then possibly returned which seems to be unique to the US. This shouldn't be a surprise to sales planners though and Canon knows its market best

It is a very strange situation for Canon to have manufacturing planning so poorly with big surpluses and shortages. If it was all bodies or all lenses due to factory capacity or component shortages then that can be explained but this situation is just plain weird. Canon has mentioned shortages in the past/pandemic times to explain the situation but aren't doing that at the moment => internal planning failure (or conspiracy)

Good read, thanks.

I'm a Canon user - not particularly because I think their kit is "better", but simply because my dad had a Canon Canonet 28 in the '70s and I connected with the brand ever since.

I think Canon got stuck in the '90s. A period where manufacturers made the thing they wanted to, and consumers just had to "suck it up and read the damn manual." It was the height of arrogance and supplier power. If you look at the menu systems, manuals and strange if-you-use-this-setting-you-can't-use-that-setting catch-22's, it smacks of dominant players doing things because "that's the way we always have" and all the behaviours so typical of folks who's only competitors are pretty much identical to them, but for brand; just smaller.

Of course, no one saw the iPhone coming (ask me, I'm ex-Nokia). Above all, the one thing the iPhone has proven devastating at is disintermediation. If you were resting on your laurels, even if you were at the top of an old and dusty pile, the iPhone was coming for you. It wiped out all but the most high end of segments for camera manufacturers, which is why we see manufacturers competing on incremental features at the high end.

To make it worse, Canon appears to have been engrossed in the menu item that doesn't let you have 2000's WiFi if you have have some or other bizarrely unrelated camera setting turned on, whilst the rest of the competition was hard at work on the one thing that really matters in a camera: the sensor. Turns out that pretty much every cool feature from read out speed to frame rate to focus is a function of the sensor's capabilities.

Now, I am just a middle of the road amateur wildlife photographer, rocking an R5 that is pretty far beyond my abilities, but I can tell you that folks like the AP clearly looked at manufacturers and made a call on who they would like to bet the future on and equip their many photographers with. And they *do* care about the sensor: hence the laughable scenario that Canon appears to be designing "flagships" for agencies that have decided on other competitor's flagships.

As the story says, it's not all bad. Objectively, an R5 with an RF100-500 is a wildlife combination that is so incredibly good it would be borderline unimaginable only 10 years ago. No consumer photographer who picks up any manufacturer's latest offerings is going to be disappointed.

But, that's not the point. The point is that while a bunch of '90's companies are feature-function-benefitting it out with each other, they're not hearing the iPhone (and Pixel, Samsung etc) munch on their lunch. Unless you're a "creator" or a serious photographer (and let's be honest, we're a diminishing pool), why on Earth, having experienced the smartphone ecosystem, would you ever contemplate a camera?

I hope these manufacturers survive. Not only am I nostalgic for this industry and it's heyday era, but I feel there is space, somewhere between the devaluing deluge of throwaway phone selfies, AI generated originals, and the film purists, for a genuinely good digital camera that is easy to use, has a good UI/UX and just keeps our sport alive.

Mark.

Canon Rumors Guy said:

Bricks and mortar retailers are opening more stores outside of the US..European chains are expanding.

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It's internet retailers like Amazon, B&H, Adorama, that killed bricks and mortar camera retailers in the USA, not Canon direct.

Canon Rumors Guy said:

Bricks and mortar retailers are opening more stores outside of the US..European chains are expanding.

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That's not what I'm seeing in Denmark. The electronic chains have low-end cameras and lenses, the photo chains are basically extinct and there are a handful of specialty photo shops that cater for the enthusiasts and pros.