Quote:From what I hear (and this is very rumourish) Olympus e-m5 and lenses are doing well with regards to margins but the older ep line was over produced and is now being dumped and the compact aspect of the division is mostly loss (no clue if the x1/x2 did ok). So the camera divison as a whole is not doing that great but individual aspects are doing well. For FUJI it is a new line and so they need to make up R&D cost. No clue how sony cameras are donig but sony as a whole is showing stress; in fact (and this took me by surprise) pretty much only toshiba did well with regads to japan camera/electronic companies (nikon and canon also did well though profits were downward slope from previous year but they were in the black).
Truth is that none of them get rich from this anymore. I reckon they are all lucky to get even with their CAMERAS.
The profits (if any) come from the lenses and accessory because this is an afterthought for most users.
This is also why Sony is successful in the mirrorless market (in terms of market share) - they are trying to make their cameras as sexy as possible whereas their lenses are still not up to MFT or even Samsung standards. Olympus did understand this to some degree lately, Panasonic obviously does not - despite great technology. The GH3 is a pain to look at besides the NEX6/7 or Fuji X-E1 for instance. Fuji bets on the Leica appeal which works for a certain portion of the market.
my 2c