Digital-camera makers Sony and Fuji have both been able to boost market share this year despite the slowing economy.
Sony Thai yesterday said its share of the digital-camera market had increased by 5 percentage points from last year to 30 per cent.
Fuji's share has risen slightly to 12 per cent.
Sony is the market leader in Thailand, while Fuji is ranked fourth.
Both companies claim their unit sales in the first eight months of the year were better than the market. Sony's sales dropped by less than the market's decline, while Fuji maintained sales from a year earlier.
Taisuke Nakanishi, managing director of Sony Thai, said Sony had maintained its market leadership in the compact digital-camera market with a share of 30 per cent. This, he said, was because Sony is still recognised by consumers as the strong brand for innovative and hi-tech products.
"Amid the economic slowdown, consumers have to keep more of their money in their pockets. If they want to spend, they have to look for value-for-money products and a strong brand they can trust. Our market share during the first eight months increased from last year, while those of smaller brands shrank," he said.
According to Gfk Retail and Technology (Thailand)'s electrical-appliance market report revealed last week, unit sales in the digital-camera market from January to July dropped by about 10 per cent from the same period last year.
Nakanishi said Sony's unit sales were expected to pick up in the second half of the year.
Sittiwech Sawedpat, manager for electronic imaging products, Fujifilm (Thailand), said the company had been able to maintain its unit sales from last year because most of its digital compact cameras are priced below Bt10,000.
Sony and Fuji yesterday launched new cameras in order to boost sales in the final quarter. Both companies have focused on innovative products so that they can tap tech-loving shoppers that are willing to spend on new-technology products.
Sony has launched two new Cyber-shot cameras - the DSC-TX1 and DSC-WX - while Fuji has introduced the FinePix S200EXR, FinePix F70EXR and the world's first 3-D digital camera.
Cherdpong Tantipoontam, Sony marketing manager, digital imaging II section, consumer marketing division, said the company expected the new models to boost sales this quarter and maintain unit sales from last year.
The new cameras represent Sony's strategic policy of expanding its customer base in the tech-lovers' segment, as this target group has been less impacted by the global economic crisis.
He said the largest portion of clients using Sony's products were tech-lovers, followed by image-conscious shoppers.
Manus Kanokpaipipat, Fujifilm director and general manager, forecast overall Thai camera sales this year at about 900,000, against the 1 million devices estimated by several manufacturers.
Fuji expects to sell 135,000 digital compact cameras this year, 13-14 per cent higher than last year's 110,000 units.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Camera-makers focus on high end, professional segments
Major camera brands are going ahead with development of advanced and innovative products to tap techno-savvy shoppers who are still willing to pay for the latest technology.
Meanwhile, digital cameras focused on the mass market seem to have less attraction for leading brands amid the economic slowdown, as a serious price war continues to be waged in this segment.
Sony Thai last week launched two new models of its Cyber-shot camera equipped with advanced imaging technology. It also introduced the Party-shot, a new digital camera accessory that features an auto-shooting system, for use with the new models.
According to Gfk Retail and Technology (Thailand)'s latest report on the digital camera market, digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras and cameras for professionals show the most potential for growth this year and in the near future. Total camera sales this year are forecast at 1.1 million units. DSLR and professional cameras are expected to account for 6 percent of the total market this year.
Yoji Higashida, senior director, consumer market, Sony Thai, said last week that Sony recently conducted research on roughly 5,000 general consumers. The company identified six groups of IT consumers from the survey. The first three groups are the "Image Conscious", or shoppers who buy IT products for their image, "Connectors", who use IT products to make contact with others, and the "Techno Savvy" group.
Among these groups, the Techno Savvy show the most potential, as they are willing to spend on the latest technology despite the economic slowdown. Therefore, Sony Thai is paying most attention to this group.
The latest Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras are the DSC-TX1 and WX1. The highlight of the two models are the new Exmor R CMOS sensor, which can reduce the "noise" in images by roughly 50 percent, granting users an opportunity to take cleaner photos at higher definition, even in dimly-lit environments, Sony's Sweep Panorama and 10-frames-per-second-burst shooting features are also included.
Another highlight is Party-shot. Users insert the two new Sony digital camera models into the dock of the device. The product is uses Sony's face-detection and smile-detection technologies, intelligent auto-shooting, pans and zooms to enable the cameras to take pictures by themselves.
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1, DSC-WX1 and Party-shot are priced at Bt13,990, Bt12,990 and Bt4,990, respectively.
Sittiwech Sawedpat, manager, electronic imaging products, Fujifilm (Thailand), said Fuji would for the first time seriously focus on products priced at more than Bt10,000 each.
Almost all of Fuji's digital cameras are priced below Bt10,000.
Sittiwech said Fuji would also launch the world's first 3-dimensions camera - FinePix Real 3D W1 - at a photography fair to be held in November this year. Users can view 3D pictures on an LCD screen without 3D eyeglasses.
"We should do well if we focus on techno-savvy consumers. I believe that the 3D camera will be the trend in digital cameras next year. We asked Fuji headquarters in Japan to deliver 300 3D cameras to the market in Thailand this year, but we will get only 30 units this year. We expect to sell the entire lot of 3D cameras at the fair," he said.
Premium camera brand Leica recently introduced several new products, as well. Two are the Leica M9 and Leica S2, which are priced at Bt289,000 and Bt890,000, respectively. The cameras are targeted at professionals, a niche market that still needs new technology.
Jimmy Soo, regional manager, Schmidt Marketing (Singapore), Leica's distributor overseeing the Thai and Singaporean markets, said the company's sales in Thailand were still growing but below projections.
The firm expects the Thai market to grow by 10 percent in terms of sales this fiscal year (ending March 2010).
Chitchai Thienkanjanawong, sales and marketing manager for major digital-camera retail chain Big Camera, said DSLR and digital compact pro consumer cameras would be the two segments with the most growth potential over the next two years.
Big Camera plans to invest Bt15 million to Bt20 million next year to renovate existing shops located in shopping malls. It aims to tap high-end shoppers with potential to spend in tough market situations.
The total digital-camera market this year is expected to be worth about Bt10 billion. DSLR cameras are forecast o account for 20 percent of that market.
Meanwhile, digital cameras focused on the mass market seem to have less attraction for leading brands amid the economic slowdown, as a serious price war continues to be waged in this segment.
Sony Thai last week launched two new models of its Cyber-shot camera equipped with advanced imaging technology. It also introduced the Party-shot, a new digital camera accessory that features an auto-shooting system, for use with the new models.
According to Gfk Retail and Technology (Thailand)'s latest report on the digital camera market, digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras and cameras for professionals show the most potential for growth this year and in the near future. Total camera sales this year are forecast at 1.1 million units. DSLR and professional cameras are expected to account for 6 percent of the total market this year.
Yoji Higashida, senior director, consumer market, Sony Thai, said last week that Sony recently conducted research on roughly 5,000 general consumers. The company identified six groups of IT consumers from the survey. The first three groups are the "Image Conscious", or shoppers who buy IT products for their image, "Connectors", who use IT products to make contact with others, and the "Techno Savvy" group.
Among these groups, the Techno Savvy show the most potential, as they are willing to spend on the latest technology despite the economic slowdown. Therefore, Sony Thai is paying most attention to this group.
The latest Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras are the DSC-TX1 and WX1. The highlight of the two models are the new Exmor R CMOS sensor, which can reduce the "noise" in images by roughly 50 percent, granting users an opportunity to take cleaner photos at higher definition, even in dimly-lit environments, Sony's Sweep Panorama and 10-frames-per-second-burst shooting features are also included.
Another highlight is Party-shot. Users insert the two new Sony digital camera models into the dock of the device. The product is uses Sony's face-detection and smile-detection technologies, intelligent auto-shooting, pans and zooms to enable the cameras to take pictures by themselves.
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1, DSC-WX1 and Party-shot are priced at Bt13,990, Bt12,990 and Bt4,990, respectively.
Sittiwech Sawedpat, manager, electronic imaging products, Fujifilm (Thailand), said Fuji would for the first time seriously focus on products priced at more than Bt10,000 each.
Almost all of Fuji's digital cameras are priced below Bt10,000.
Sittiwech said Fuji would also launch the world's first 3-dimensions camera - FinePix Real 3D W1 - at a photography fair to be held in November this year. Users can view 3D pictures on an LCD screen without 3D eyeglasses.
"We should do well if we focus on techno-savvy consumers. I believe that the 3D camera will be the trend in digital cameras next year. We asked Fuji headquarters in Japan to deliver 300 3D cameras to the market in Thailand this year, but we will get only 30 units this year. We expect to sell the entire lot of 3D cameras at the fair," he said.
Premium camera brand Leica recently introduced several new products, as well. Two are the Leica M9 and Leica S2, which are priced at Bt289,000 and Bt890,000, respectively. The cameras are targeted at professionals, a niche market that still needs new technology.
Jimmy Soo, regional manager, Schmidt Marketing (Singapore), Leica's distributor overseeing the Thai and Singaporean markets, said the company's sales in Thailand were still growing but below projections.
The firm expects the Thai market to grow by 10 percent in terms of sales this fiscal year (ending March 2010).
Chitchai Thienkanjanawong, sales and marketing manager for major digital-camera retail chain Big Camera, said DSLR and digital compact pro consumer cameras would be the two segments with the most growth potential over the next two years.
Big Camera plans to invest Bt15 million to Bt20 million next year to renovate existing shops located in shopping malls. It aims to tap high-end shoppers with potential to spend in tough market situations.
The total digital-camera market this year is expected to be worth about Bt10 billion. DSLR cameras are forecast o account for 20 percent of that market.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Magnificent seven
In the most important, most revered event since the invention of the brontosaurus trap,Microsoft shipped the most incredibly fabulous operating system ever made; the release of Windows 7 also spurred a new generation of personal computers of all sizes at prices well below last month's offers.The top reason Windows 7 does not suck: There is no registered website called Windows7Sucks.com
Kindle e-book reader maker Amazon.com and new Nook e-book reader vendor Barnes and Noble got it on; B&N got great reviews for the "Kindle killer"Nook, with dual screens and touch controls so you can "turn" pages, plays MP3s and allows many non-B&N book formats, although not the Kindle one;Amazon then killed the US version of its Kindle in favour of the international one, reduced its price to $260(8,700 baht), same as the Nook; it's not yet clear what you can get in Thailand with a Nook, but you sure can't (yet) get much, relatively speaking, with a Kindle;but here's the biggest difference so far,which Amazon.com has ignored: the Nook lets you lend e-books to any other Nook owner, just as if they were paper books; the borrowed books expire on the borrower's Nook in two weeks.
Phone maker Nokia of Finland announced it is suing iPhone maker Apple of America for being a copycat; lawyers said they figure Nokia can get at least one, probably two per cent (retail) for every iPhone sold by Steve "President for Life" Jobs and crew via the lawsuit,which sure beats working for it -$6 (200 baht) to $12(400 baht) on 30 million phones sold so far, works out to $400 million or 25 percent of the whole Apple empire profits during the last quarter;there were 10 patent thefts, the Finnish executives said, on everything from moving data to security and encryption.
Nokia of Finland announced that it is one month behind on shipping its new flagship N900 phone, the first to run on Linux software; delay of the $750(25,000 baht) phone had absolutely no part in making Nokia so short that it had to sue Apple, slap yourself for such a thought.
Tim Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web, said he had one regret:the double slash that follows the "http:"in standard web addresses; he estimated that 14.2 gazillion users have wasted 48.72 bazillion hours typing those two keystrokes, and he's sorry; of course there's no reason to ever type that, since your browser does it for you when you type "www.bangkokpost.com" but Tim needs to admit he made one error in his lifetime.
The International Telecommunication Union of the United Nations, which doesn't sell any phones or services, announced that there should be a mobile phone charger that will work with any phone; now who would ever have thought of that, without a UN body to wind up a major study on the subject?;the GSM Association estimates that 51,000 tonnes of chargers are made each year in order to keep companies able to have their own unique ones.
The Well, Doh Award of the Week was presented at arm's length to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; the group's deputy secretary-general Petko Draganov said that developing countries will miss some of the stuff available on the Internet if they don't install more broadband infrastructure; a report that used your tax baht to compile said that quite a few people use mobile phones but companies are more likely to invest in countries with excellent broadband connections; no one ever had thought of this before, right?
Sun Microsystems , as a result of the Oracle takeover, said it will allow 3,000 current workers never to bother coming to work again; Sun referred to the losses as "jobs," not people; now the fourth largest server maker in the world, Sun said it lost $2.2 billion in its last fiscal year; European regulators are holding up approval of the Oracle purchase in the hope of getting some money in exchange for not involving Oracle in court cases.
The multi-gazillionaire and very annoying investor Carl Icahn resigned from the board at Yahoo ; he spun it as a vote of confidence, saying current directors are taking the formerly threatened company seriously; Yahoo reported increased profits but smaller revenues in the third quarter.
The US House of Representatives voted to censure Vietnam for jailing bloggers; the non-binding resolution sponsored by southern California congresswoman Loretta Sanchez said the Internet is "a crucial tool for the citizens of Vietnam to be able to exercise their freedom of expression and association;"Hanoi has recently jailed at least nine activists for up to six years apiece for holding pro-democracy banners. Iran jailed blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakshan for 10 months - in solitary confinement.
Kindle e-book reader maker Amazon.com and new Nook e-book reader vendor Barnes and Noble got it on; B&N got great reviews for the "Kindle killer"Nook, with dual screens and touch controls so you can "turn" pages, plays MP3s and allows many non-B&N book formats, although not the Kindle one;Amazon then killed the US version of its Kindle in favour of the international one, reduced its price to $260(8,700 baht), same as the Nook; it's not yet clear what you can get in Thailand with a Nook, but you sure can't (yet) get much, relatively speaking, with a Kindle;but here's the biggest difference so far,which Amazon.com has ignored: the Nook lets you lend e-books to any other Nook owner, just as if they were paper books; the borrowed books expire on the borrower's Nook in two weeks.
Phone maker Nokia of Finland announced it is suing iPhone maker Apple of America for being a copycat; lawyers said they figure Nokia can get at least one, probably two per cent (retail) for every iPhone sold by Steve "President for Life" Jobs and crew via the lawsuit,which sure beats working for it -$6 (200 baht) to $12(400 baht) on 30 million phones sold so far, works out to $400 million or 25 percent of the whole Apple empire profits during the last quarter;there were 10 patent thefts, the Finnish executives said, on everything from moving data to security and encryption.
Nokia of Finland announced that it is one month behind on shipping its new flagship N900 phone, the first to run on Linux software; delay of the $750(25,000 baht) phone had absolutely no part in making Nokia so short that it had to sue Apple, slap yourself for such a thought.
Tim Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web, said he had one regret:the double slash that follows the "http:"in standard web addresses; he estimated that 14.2 gazillion users have wasted 48.72 bazillion hours typing those two keystrokes, and he's sorry; of course there's no reason to ever type that, since your browser does it for you when you type "www.bangkokpost.com" but Tim needs to admit he made one error in his lifetime.
The International Telecommunication Union of the United Nations, which doesn't sell any phones or services, announced that there should be a mobile phone charger that will work with any phone; now who would ever have thought of that, without a UN body to wind up a major study on the subject?;the GSM Association estimates that 51,000 tonnes of chargers are made each year in order to keep companies able to have their own unique ones.
The Well, Doh Award of the Week was presented at arm's length to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; the group's deputy secretary-general Petko Draganov said that developing countries will miss some of the stuff available on the Internet if they don't install more broadband infrastructure; a report that used your tax baht to compile said that quite a few people use mobile phones but companies are more likely to invest in countries with excellent broadband connections; no one ever had thought of this before, right?
Sun Microsystems , as a result of the Oracle takeover, said it will allow 3,000 current workers never to bother coming to work again; Sun referred to the losses as "jobs," not people; now the fourth largest server maker in the world, Sun said it lost $2.2 billion in its last fiscal year; European regulators are holding up approval of the Oracle purchase in the hope of getting some money in exchange for not involving Oracle in court cases.
The multi-gazillionaire and very annoying investor Carl Icahn resigned from the board at Yahoo ; he spun it as a vote of confidence, saying current directors are taking the formerly threatened company seriously; Yahoo reported increased profits but smaller revenues in the third quarter.
The US House of Representatives voted to censure Vietnam for jailing bloggers; the non-binding resolution sponsored by southern California congresswoman Loretta Sanchez said the Internet is "a crucial tool for the citizens of Vietnam to be able to exercise their freedom of expression and association;"Hanoi has recently jailed at least nine activists for up to six years apiece for holding pro-democracy banners. Iran jailed blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakshan for 10 months - in solitary confinement.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
PENTAX OPTIO E70
Digital cameras make life easier: no extra money on film, images viewable seconds after you've snapped, and they work as a great pick-up line:"You look like you're man enough to handle a camera. Could you take our picture?"
But with every perk, comes less than desirable picture-taking situations. To avoid common camera conundrums (CCC) we can look to the Pentax Optio E70. CCC 1: Mode Mix-Ups
"Go stand near that funny-looking woman. I want to get her in the background of the photo! Ready?Wait, why isn't it taking a picture?Oh, it's in video mode!"
While many probably don't know what purpose half the buttons on digital cameras serve, the E70 fixes that with large, spacious icons. You don't need doll's tea set hands to press the knobs, and you'll never "accidentally" make a sex tape by leaving the video function on. CCC 2: Spotting Sexy Singles
"I want to take a picture of that hot girl walking by, but she's moving so fast!"The E70 has a setting that can be used for good (or evil; up to you). With its Pixel Track SR mode, the camera reduces the effects of motion blur by sharpening fuzzy pixels. This works for hyperactive pets and children too. CCC 3: Charging Challenges
"I forgot to charge my camera! Now I don't even have the option of taking pictures of funny-looking or hot people!"
Even with all its digital glory, the E70 uses simple AA batteries. It's a perfect addition for your travels - to take shots to make the rest of us jealous - and with 10 megapixels and simple features, you'll definitely be able to overcome CCC.
But with every perk, comes less than desirable picture-taking situations. To avoid common camera conundrums (CCC) we can look to the Pentax Optio E70. CCC 1: Mode Mix-Ups
"Go stand near that funny-looking woman. I want to get her in the background of the photo! Ready?Wait, why isn't it taking a picture?Oh, it's in video mode!"
While many probably don't know what purpose half the buttons on digital cameras serve, the E70 fixes that with large, spacious icons. You don't need doll's tea set hands to press the knobs, and you'll never "accidentally" make a sex tape by leaving the video function on. CCC 2: Spotting Sexy Singles
"I want to take a picture of that hot girl walking by, but she's moving so fast!"The E70 has a setting that can be used for good (or evil; up to you). With its Pixel Track SR mode, the camera reduces the effects of motion blur by sharpening fuzzy pixels. This works for hyperactive pets and children too. CCC 3: Charging Challenges
"I forgot to charge my camera! Now I don't even have the option of taking pictures of funny-looking or hot people!"
Even with all its digital glory, the E70 uses simple AA batteries. It's a perfect addition for your travels - to take shots to make the rest of us jealous - and with 10 megapixels and simple features, you'll definitely be able to overcome CCC.
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