Nikon seems to be the only camera maker that is close to hitting their sales estimates and it continues to defy the overall market trend of a shrinking camera market (just 99m units overall now forecast this year).
DSLR and mirrorless sales were actually up slightly from earlier estimates, to a total of 3.45m units in the first half of the fiscal year, up from 2.7m in the same period last year. Coolpix sales were slightly down from estimates, to 8.26m units, though this was still higher than last year's 7.86m units, bucking the trend reported by virtually every other camera maker. Since compact camera sales shrunk overall in the year, Nikon gained market share in compact cameras at the expense of other companies.
To put that in context: Nikon grew Coolpix sales from 7.86m units to 8.26m units when Sony's compact camera sales slid from 11.3m units to 8m units.
One interesting point was that lens sales missed their estimate, selling only 4.77m units instead of 4.9m units, though this was still up considerably from last year's 3.93m units. My guess is that lenses that Nikon thought they'd deliver in the second fiscal quarter slipped into the current quarter (or later).
Another curious point was that inventories held by Nikon in the Imaging Group grew by 31% in the last six months. Either some products were being held for delivery during the period (e.g. the upcoming D5200) or Nikon's inventory of product is growing faster than their sales. I'd bet the former more than the latter, yet it's still an anomaly that I haven't seen recently in Nikon's statements and warrants watching. Because Nikon's cash has shrunk during this same period, you'd expect them to want to move that inventory and convert it to cash soon.
Overall, the Imaging Group at Nikon remains highly profitable, returning a 41.8b yen profit on 381b yen in sales. This is in stark contrast to a number of other camera groups in other Japanese companies, many of which are either not profitable at all, or have far smaller profit margins.
However, all is not positive news in Nikon's presentation. The Precision group that makes semiconductor equipment had a lean first half and expects even more tightening in the second half of Nikon's fiscal year. The net result of that is that Nikon is even more of a camera company now than ever before. The expectations for the full fiscal year are that cameras will produce a whopping 73% of the company's sales. All those steppers, semiconductor equipment, microscopes, binoculars, glasses, spotting scopes, and other equipment Nikon makes are now down to close to one-quarter of the company.
As I've written before, Nikon is now a camera company. As goes the camera group, so goes Nikon. Nikon expects to sell almost 22% of all compact cameras this year, 37% of all interchangeable lens cameras (DSLRs and mirrorless), and 24% of all cameras. Nikon's current position can be summed up as this: for Nikon to continue to grow, it will have to take sales away from other camera makers. Indeed, for Nikon to continue to grow at the rate it has in the last two years, Nikon will have to aggressively take market share from other competitors.