What's ahead for Panasonic Lumix ? 29 December 2021

 

Angophora costata  Panasonic lumix FZ300

Konosuke Matsushita founded his eponymous  electrical company in 1932. The fledgling company started with three employees making simple electrical products in a home based mini factory.

Matsushita electric eventually grew to become a huge international multi function corporation operating under the National and Panasonic names.

True to its origins Panasonic still makes consumer products but much of the corporate enterprise these days is directed towards components of heavy industry and automobiles.  Industrial battery production has become a big part of the Panasonic enterprise.

Matsushita corporation has a strong sense of its own history and its mission to improve people’s lives by making useful goods available at affordable prices.

In 1985 the first Panasonic video camera was introduced. This was the start of a commitment to video which continues today.

In 2001 Panasonic and Leica announced a joint venture to produce still cameras, which over the years became hybrid still/video capable devices.

Over the next ten years Panasonic produced many fixed zoom lens camera models and in 2008 joined with Olympus to launch the Micro Four Thirds system (M43) of mirrorless interchangeable  lens cameras.

Unfortunately for both Panasonic and Olympus,  M43 was unable to gain much traction in a market place dominated at first by Canon and Nikon then by Canon and Sony,  all producing cameras with larger sensors.

Olympus sold off their consumer imaging business and in 2019 Panasonic stepped up to full frame mirrorless interchangeable lens models in association with Leica and Sigma with the three entities agreeing to use the Leica L mount.

Making ground in the full frame sector was always going to be an uphill battle for Panasonic without the brand name recognition enjoyed by the longer established makers or the R&D resources of Canon and Sony generated by their much higher sales.

In 2020 Panasonic had less than 5% of the total consumer camera market. I imagine this must be pretty frustrating for executives,  designers and workers after more than 20 years of hard work, innovation and risk taking.

Is there any way Panasonic can increase market penetration of the Lumix camera brand ?

The problem for minor players in a technology intensive industry is that they need to invest in significant R&D just to stay in the game at all.

Cameras are not like vinyl discs and turntables for music. The technology of vinyl discs is done. A small corporate entity can service this niche market with no need for R&D expenditure.

But camera technology is developing at a rapid rate.    My Canon EOS R5 camera can find the eye of a bird partly concealed in the foliage of a tree,  focus on the eye and keep focus on the eye when the bird hops about even when it goes behind occasional obstructions. No camera could do that until very recently.

To keep up, Panasonic with less than 5% of the market needs to spend as much on R&D as Canon with over 50% of the market. It seems unlikely they could manage this.

It would appear that Panasonic and Fujifilm which is in a similar position need a technology breakthrough of some kind, most likely in the realm of sensor technology. They have tried to achieve this with research on an organic sensor but  I  have heard nothing about this for some time and as far as I am aware there are no consumer products with such a sensor type.

I was an early adopter of Panasonic M43 cameras and lenses. Over the years I have bought and used many Panasonic fixed lens and interchangeable lens models and found most of them a pleasure to use. My new favourite camera is another turn around the block with an old favourite,  the FZ300.

So I would like to see Panasonic survive and thrive in the camera market but that  looks increasingly unlikely as time goes on.

Canon and Sony get stronger and Nikon appears balanced precariously on the borderline between success and failure.  Fujifilm and Panasonic find themselves in  the also rans category with no obvious way to increase their market share. 

In October 2021, Yosuke Yamane  Director of Panasonic imaging business unit published a letter on Weibo stating that the corporation had no intention to sell the Lumix business and that after the GH5.2 and GH6 more exciting products would be forthcoming.

Maybe…………………..

But if the business unit is making a loss, and us mere consumers don’t know if it is or not then the corporate bean counters will give the business its marching orders no matter what might be the desire of the design and production teams.

Panasonic is the third camera maker in recent times to find it necessary to assure consumers that the consumer camera business will not be sold.

Olympus said it……….and sold.

Fujifilm and Panasonic said it……………and we will just have to wait and see.