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LEDE ON
Did the Chinese puncture the Japanese lens tire? The Japanese have a term, attachment rate, which defines how many lenses they sell each year per camera body. The attachment rate was within ±0.02 of an average of 1.67 lenses per body for 11 of the last 20 years. There was an understandable dip in the two post quake/flood years when production was constrained, plus an odd, short upward spike during the pandemic. However, from 2022 to the present there's been a strong and consistent downward trend in the attachment rate: 1.64, 1.61, 1.56, and now 1.51 for 2025. Not coincidentally, the number of prime lenses the Japanese have been selling during that four-year dip has also fallen, and mostly for full frame. Indeed, the drop is more dramatic when only looked at in terms of full frame (a 21% drop in four years). We currently have 55 full-frame Chinese prime lenses that are available for the Nikon Z-mount and even more for the Sony E-mount. While no individual Chinese lens seems to be stealing the attachment rate on its own, collectively the Chinese lens armada is deflating the attachment rate the Japanese camera companies have relied upon for so long. If the ~8% overall decline is really due to Chinese lens sales, that implies that the Chinese sold about 850k units, by the way.
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Analysis
Republishing data is not the same as interpreting it
Once CIPA published their year-end results for 2025, it seems that—at least according to virtually every photo Web site—the big news was the resurgence of compact cameras. Yes, compact cameras went from 1.88m units in 2024 to 2.44m units in 2025, but it seems no one actually got around to trying to answer the question of why that happened.
It happened because the Japanese camera makers simply started making them again. The demand was always there (and there's still more demand than the 2025 numbers would indicate, probably something at least in the 3-4m unit range). The real reason compact camera sales withered starting in 2020 and continuing through 2024 has to do with the pandemic and parts availability than anything else. Each camera maker tended to deal with the supply chain problem differently, and the two that were the most extreme at that were Canon and Nikon.
Canon simply stopped making—but did not discontinue—compact models. Thus, you might have noticed in the last year (plus rumors for this year) that some Canon Powershot cameras are seeing resurrections (though not updates). To my knowledge, Canon never closed or repurposed factories the way others did. For instance, Nikon. Nikon did discontinue pretty much everything except for the top Coolpix models (P950, P1100, and for some reason, the P1000 still seems to be sold). There appears to be little prospect of other Coolpix coming back, though the jury is still out on whether Nikon might add a Coolpix model in the future.
Fujifilm had one of their biggest hits with the X100 in 2013, and the 2020 iteration (V) was the point where it really went viral, so they kept their production up despite parts shortages that hurt other model sales. They doubled down with the X-half and GFX100RF in 2025, too, at a time when most of the other camera producers were not investing in new models.
I don't believe the demand for US$1000-2000 compact cameras is anywhere close to being sated, as the Ricoh GRIV and Fujifilm X100VI backorders show (I've got a GRIV I'll be adding to my compact camera reviews soon). But I also believe there's room in the US$500-1000 space for a really competent compact camera, too, and that's not really being well served by anyone at the moment.
Let me go out on a limb and suggest that compact camera sales will again show dramatic "growth" in volume when the 2026 results eventually get published. How much growth? Not as much as the market demands, as parts shortages are still being triggered by the unavailability of fab time, plus most of the camera companies have made their design teams more lean. But with Canon back to producing Powershots, we'll see more units shipped in 2026 than 2025.
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CP+ Announcement
Canon is first to announce
On Wednesday Canon announced two new RF lenses and a reappearance of a Powershot compact in the run-up to the CP+ show later this month in Japan.
▶︎ 14mm f/1.4L VCM. This new wide angle optic lists at US$2599 and represents an attempt to lock up the extremely wide, high optical performance prime position before the Chinese start sniping at the RF mount. Some of the early examples from the lens are astrophotography work, so I expect it to be well controlled in terms of coma and other deformities that show up in corners.
▶︎ 7-14mm f/2.8-3.5L VCM. And if you want to go more extreme—into the circular to rectilinear fisheye realm—Canon has a new US$1899 zoom that helps round out their high end zoom optics. At 7mm you get a full circle fisheye (at full frame), while at 14mm you get a 114° rectilinear view.
▶︎ PowerShot G7 X Mark III limited edition anniversary special. This US$1299 compact camera is a 20mp 1" sensor camera with a 24-100mm f/1/8-2.8 equivalent lens. So what do you get for US$400 more than the regular model? A new paint job, a fancier knurled front ring, and a little 30th anniversary (of PowerShot) mark on the pop-up flash.
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Wrapping Up
And in other news
▶︎ Petapixel isn't an economics site. Once again I have to point out that in their rush to get news out, Petapixel managed to produce clickbait headlines and statements. This time it was "Nikon Posts Big Losses and Cuts Projections." This, of course, always raises the social media negativity towards Nikon Imaging, even though they're not really part of those "big losses," the projection cuts were modest and likely the result of the delayed Z9II, and the group is not in any danger.
The primary source of those "big losses" for the whole company was a 90.6b yen write down against the acquisition of SLM Solutions to help create Nikon's new digital manufacturing business. Indeed, none of the 103.6b yen loss for the quarter was the result of lack of profitability of Nikon's primary businesses. Cash on hand, receivables, and inventories didn't really drop; what really dropped was 60.5b yen in "goodwill" that was on the books and 26.2b yen in intangible assets.
What that tells me is that Nikon was over optimistic in how they booked the original SLM acquisition. The write downs are mostly just saying that the 3D metal printer company Nikon bought in 2023 wasn't worth what they paid for it and then booked into their assets. Thus, this past quarter they wrote down their assets to reflect that. The actual cash long ago left the building. FWIW, get ready for a repeat in three months from Petapixel, as Nikon has already said they'll take another significant write down in the fourth quarter (again, none of it having to do with their biggest business, cameras and lenses).
In the fiscal news that is important to the photography market, Nikon Imaging is showing signs of a slowdown in sales (part of Petapixel's "cuts projections"). Foreign exchange rates and tariffs coupled with the fact that Nikon volume shifted to lower priced models due to recent camera updates is the real story. Overall, that means that Nikon is estimating that they'll still reach the same total sales figure by March 31st as they earlier forecast, but it will produce less profit by about a third. Since Nikon is also forecasting 50k fewer cameras and 100k fewer lenses, for sales to hit their new expected fiscal year result they need to sell more higher end gear and not give back more money via foreign exchange and tariffs. What that suggests to me is fewer sales on lower end gear and more on higher end products.
I do note that Nikon is going to slip slightly in market share for the year, but as I've already reported, the next generation of top end cameras has been delayed, and that's now starting to show up in the results. I believe Nikon originally thought that they'd drop the Z9II towards the end of their fiscal year (i.e. this quarter), which produced their original estimates. I do not expect the Z9II until this fall (in Nikon's next fiscal year) at this point, and even then it may be a development announcement first, followed by frantic testing to get it out as quickly as possible.
Nikon Imaging is fine. Not quite where management hoped it to be, but actually still on the path of the long-range forecast they made several years ago. But as I've written several times lately, early 2026 is going to mostly be about lenses, as I see no new Nikon camera ready to to hit any time soon. Frankly, that's fine by me as I'm still trying to catch up with the Z9 generation onslaught Nikon made in the past few years.
▶︎ Godox keeps it going. The perennial Chinese flash cloner has introduced the V1mid, a reasonably small round-headed US$179 flash unit with a built-in Li-ion battery. As usual, there's fairly full functionality (including hi-speed sync) with Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, OMDS, and Sony specific models available. Also as usual, Godox refuses to publish Guide Number information, which is useful in determining which flash unit you might actually want. In fact, there are a number of "unprovided" notations in their specifications, as if this is top secret information that could fall into the wrong hands. All we know is that the V1mid is not as powerful as the V1. I guess the dox in Godox doesn't stand for documentation.
▶︎ Next week will get busy. The CP+ announcements start in earnest this coming week, so expect to see a lot more news and commentary coming shortly.
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As you can see, this weekly or bi-weekly "newsletter" style for News/Views can be quite elaborate and lengthy. But by putting everything in one spot less often, in a single format, it saves me time and allows me to spend more time on the commentary than the news itself, which you can get pretty much anywhere.
byThom MAX is still coming, but for the time being I'll be doing news this way. I'll have more about byThom Max when I kick it off later in 2026. In the meantime, if you're interested in subscribing, click here to receive updates.