In the past months, we've seen worrying signals coming from Nikon, that let us think of internal problems.
Warranties have been reduced, no new models, many product discontinued...
Let's summarize what happened recently to let the fact speak:
- In January Nikon Canada reduced significantly warranty: from 5 years for lenses and 1 year for cameras down to just 1 year for all products.
- Also in January, Nikon stopped to provide international warranty, national warranties are of course still valid.
- Various DSLR cameras and F-mount lenses were removed from shopping websites or are listed as out of stock (for example in the US B&H, less than 50% of SLR lenses are currently in stock). Some examples:
- the tele AF-S Nikkor 180-400mm F4R TC1.4 FL ED VR that has been suspended "due to production reasons" that have not been specified and it's not an old model being released in 2018;
- the zoom AF-P DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR launched in 2016;
- AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR and others.
- This month Nikon released the 2021 fiscal year report, ending March 31st, where figures are bad: total revenues -24%, imaging products revenues represeting more than 50% of this decrease, operating profit went into negative territory.
- It's about 9 months that no new product has been announced, Nikon in February/March said that they planned to release many new models in 2021 but so far none saw the light.
Nikon has a great history in the imaging world and surely the reflex models are progressively loosing market share for all brands, but it's not only that, these facts are worrisome for the health of this company and for the competition in the photographic market.
Let's hope for some good news.