I know you hate the DF but many people love it, it has a huge cult following and has had very healthy sales.
Which cameras have less features?
DF. Perhaps it has a cult following. If it does it's a small one. Last I heard retailers were disappointed with it's sales compared to D800's etc.
It is no secret that Nikon's strategy is to increase the average sell price of their camera, that is simple logic given the market. Declining sales means to create the same profit you need to have higher valued items that can have a larger profit margin. This is why Nikon has produced a lot of FF camera in recent years to temp people to upgrade form the $1000 DX camera to a $2000+ FX camera. The other thing Nikon is doing is lowering manufacturing costs, internal designs are getting simpler, there is greater part re-use and production is more commonly begin made in china and Thailand plants. The next step for Nikon will be to transition their low end DX camera to mirrorless.
Well their business is nosediving. Their stock value has cratered. They are restructuring in an effort to turn things around. Their strategy was flawed. You can't increase pricing without decreasing demand. To jack up demand again, you need to increase the desirability of your product. i.e. make it BETTER. As a company you actually have to get off your backside and innovate something that adds value. I can't believe my D810 still has the same AF system as the D300? Seriously Nikon.. update the damn thing already.. at minimum make them all cross-type!
The fact is DSLR sales have dropped less than mirrorless sales.
Where are you getting this from? The graphs I've seen show DSLR shipments decreasing year on year at an alarming rate, while mirrorless has remained almost flat.
Nikon is very different, and much healthier They do have a huge reliance on imaging which does put them at risk in a declining market but that also forces them to concentrate on making successful imaging products, not failures.
Nikon is declining much faster than Canon for example. Clearly their products are not very successful right now.
http://petapixel.com/2014/05/18/nikons-financial-woes-relentless-prompt-restructuring/
funnily enough Sony is much more at risk of going under. Their entire business is making huge losses and is really struggling to keep things under control. their imaging department is also no where near ad healthy as Nikon or Canons'.
Yes right now, but Sony's camera sales are growing, not shrinking like Nikon and Canon's.
Sony as a whole is still fragile, but it's been innovating like crazy. Apparently they should be back to profit soon.
http://www.cnet.com/news/sony-says-good-times-ahead-as-it-forecasts-profit-for-next-year/
If the fact that Nikon and Canon still sell cameras with mirrors was a problem then they wouldn't have 35-40% market share each and Sony wouldn't be stuck at the same 10% they have been for the last decade.
"Mirrorless sales in the USA are rising, with sales values up 16.5% over the past year, says market researcher NPD Group. Sony highlighted the figures while celebrating its own success: with the success of the a7 series helping it generate 66% more revenue from mirrorless sales over the last twelve months."
"DSLR sales values fell 15% over the same period."
"Looking at trade body CIPA's most recent shipment data to the Americas (CIPA's grouping that also includes South America and Canada), tells a similar story. Shipments of DSLRs in the twelve months to April 2015 fell 19% by volume and 9% by value, compared to the previous year, while mirrorless grew 36% by volume and 50% by value, over the same period.
This leaves shipments of mirrorless cameras making up 16% of ILC shipments by volume: still some way behind the 26% figure they represent in the rest of the world over the same period. This suggests there's still room for growth, unlike Europe, where volumes have contracted slightly (amidst sharply dropping DSLR figures)."
That's pretty impressive. Imagine what something with the spec's of the a7rii would do?
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/6223902518/sony-rides-wave-of-us-mirrorless-sales-surge
Edit:
"Shipments of DSLRs in the twelve months to April 2015 fell 19% by volume and 9% by value, compared to the previous year, while mirrorless grew 36% by volume and 50% by value, over the same period."
If this isn't indicative of a changing tide, I don't know what else to say.
