Nikon's first quarter financials were a good news, bad news situation. The bad news? Precision Equipment (semiconductor making equipment) is having a tough time, and that division's numbers are down significantly from the same period last year. Likewise, the Instrument division is doing a bit worse than expected.
Nikon Imaging, however, just raised their first half estimates and did quite well in the first quarter. Imaging sales improved from 145.3B yen to 164.9B yen, though income dropped a bit, as previously expected. Meanwhile, Nikon has raised their DSLR unit volume estimates for the first half of the year from 1.6m units to 1.75m units. That represents a 19% increase from last year. You'll recall that at the year-end results only a quarter ago, Nikon said that DSLR sales would be basically flat this year. Lens unit estimates have been revised up a 100k, as well. And Nikon is now even projecting decent gains in Coolpix unit volume (9.3m units compared to last year's 8.6m, or an increase of 8%). Overall, Nikon's imaging division continues to put up strong numbers and forecast continued strength.
Meanwhile, more than one market analyst queried me about my CIPA figure comments, below. The worldwide CIPA numbers don't look so grim, after all. But CIPA numbers represent sales into distribution, so I was struck by how much the compact market has collapsed in Japan in the last two months. Japan is a "short" distribution market, so if there were a weakness in compact sales coming, it would most likely show up in Japan first. June's compact sales figures were especially worrying in Japan. If that were replicated worldwide in the near future, it would mean significant hurt for a lot of companies, including Nikon.