Will Olympus sell their loss-making Camera division?

[D.P.]

Probably not but Tom Hogan has a great article on the matter:
http://www.sansmirror.com/newsviews/olympus-financials-us-camer.html


The bottom line is Olympus are in serious financial problems and their camera division continues to make losses year after year yet most of the rest of the company is highly profitable. Removing the imaging business would help Olympus recover much quicker.

 

[D.P.]

With their current EMEA market share for micro 4/3s and the hugely expanding popularity of the format, I doubt they'll be selling it on until that bubble is gone as it still presents an opportunity to turn the imaging side of things around. The compacts will need a revamp but they're doing well enough in micro 4/3s presence that they'll stick it through I feel.

Well, that the thing the m4/3rds popularity is really only on the surge in Japan, in the US which is the biggest camera market in the world the proportion of MFTs cameras is small and shows zero growth while in europe the growth is much lower than they predicted and is lower than e.g., the growth Nikon and Canon experienced in their low-end DSLR sales which is exactly the area where in theory MFTs cameras should be finding the growth and taking sales away from low-end DSLRs.

The sales of Nikon 1 camera favors in comparison to Olympus MFT cameras to put things in to perspective.


But I agree that I doubt Olympus will sell off their imaging division. Panasonic actually faces similar problems so it is interesting to see that in theory one of the better EVIL camera systems with a the best lens range and current market percentage is struggling so much to be profitable. Sony imaging is also not having a great time. To be sure, even if Olympus and Panasonic both sold off their imaging division I am sure someone would snap it up and continue to produce MFT cameras and lenses.