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Panasonic buying Leica

kevinparis

kevinparis

Member
Market cap of Panasonic - around 25 billion
Market cap of Leica - 50 million

even with their troubles buying leica wouldn't exactly put a strain on their wallet
 
Bob

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
Agreeing that we are only speculating, since rumors are often just hot air...
If such talks were happening, then it might be interesting to estimate who is the originating party.
I kind of doubt that it was Panasonic, their association so far is a marketing play, but if it was Leica, then it would be to stop the blood loss on the Kaufmann family fortunes.
If the second alternative is true, then the probably of an R10 is very close to zero.
I imagine that the G1 revenue stream alone may indeed exceed Leica's total revenues. I am bumping into the damn things everywhere.
Most businessmen in their right minds do not throw good money after bad, especially under the current conditions.
-bob
 
petermcwerner

petermcwerner

Member
Bob said:
If the second alternative is true, then the probably of an R10 is very close to zero.
Click to expand...
Panasonic might be able to offer an R10 much faster and with less strain than Leica and it is a potentially lucrative market segment that is missing in their current product line. With the Leica name and lenses they might have better credibility against Canon and Nikon.
 
Bob

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
Panasonic has no presence in this segment.
Investing in the marketing to create that presence would need more money than Leica's market cap. The "goodwill" the the Leica brand in that segment is pretty low. I remember when Montblanc used to make good pens. Leica is sliding down the same slope, and it is very orthogonal to the Japanese business mind.
A missing segment is often a good thing, since it allows the company to concentrate at applying its core strengths to a segment where there are receptive customers.
I revise my estimate... p~=0 (at least as far as the R is concerned)
-bob
 
mwalker

mwalker

Subscriber Member
My experience with German companies is that they don't like to sell outside of Germany. However these are extraordinary times so maybe. More likely a stronger partnership of some kind is being discussed. Possibly the video market? The new digital frontier.
 
Last edited:
Brian Mosley

Brian Mosley

New member
mwalker said:
My experience with German companies is that they don't like to sell outside of Germany. However these are extraordinary times so maybe. More likely a stronger partnership of some kind is being discussed. Possibly the video market? The new digital frontier.
Click to expand...
A stronger partnership is a long way from Panasonic buying Leica... but I can see the sense for Panasonic to buy the red dot.

Kind Regards

Brian
 
petermcwerner

petermcwerner

Member
Brian Mosley said:
A stronger partnership is a long way from Panasonic buying Leica... but I can see the sense for Panasonic to buy the red dot.
Click to expand...
As far as I know, the Leica brand does not belong to Leica Camera AG, but to either the Leica Geosystems and Leica Microsystems company, they are not the same company. The camera company only has the right to use the brand, but cannot sell it. Without knowing the underlying agreements, it would look that to use the Leica brand, one would have to acquire the company, but that is just my uninformed opinion.
 
K

kiloran

Guest
Makes an awful lot of sense. Panasonic are slowly building a reputation for innovation and quality, and the ability to slap a red dot on a MFT body would help that new format. Leica know how to build compact very high quality optics (in fact I would say that that's all they know) and that's exactly what MFT demands.

Of course there is previous here as well with Kyocera buying Contax, the last time Zeiss died, Rollei in the 70s, etc. etc. Japan has a record of buying German brands to overcome that "useless japanese rubbish" that was so often said about their products 30/40 years ago. Panasonic need the cachet to stop people seeing them as just a consumer electronics company, there is a market for them to carve out and exploit.
 
K

kiloran

Guest
Unfortunately not, no. And I do like the fact that production in Japan is now more expensive than it is in Germany, and that (for example) Nikon shooters see "Made in Japan" as a mark of quality because so many of the consumer bodies and lenses are made in Thailand these days. Buying Leica is still a great fit for Panasonic though.
 
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