[JJ_SO]

There's little positive that one could say about Pentax without being "blindly head in the sand optimistic"

    The best that could be said is it still has a pulse !!

It's so cute, when Pentaxians defend their disappearing brand. By dissing other systems, i.e.: I don't know how many Leica SL were sold  since introduced in 2015, but due to their price tags they might have brought Leica a similar turnaround like Pentax. Since Fuji introduced their GFX line, the sales of the Pentax 645 (which btw was never the size the name is promising, 44×33 mm are not 56×41.5 mm) must have been fallen into nothingness.

I'm under the impression Ricoh would love to get rid of Pentax users who would love to see Ricoh doing more for their needs.

And my goodness, it's only that one third party lens developer cuts the development of Pentax lenses to save and redicrect capacities and human resources. For what? For L-mount alliance, right. Instead of selling one Pentax lens, selling maybe two or three. And while Pentax is irrelevant to video people, Panasonic is not.

[Klaus]

I just had a look - you may be right, FF.

It's hard to find figures but in the 2018 report ( https://www.ricoh.com/-/Media/Ricoh/Sites/com/sustainability/report/download/pdf2018/all_E.pdf on page 37) I spotted a revenue figure of 19billion yen for the camera segment - or 160mio EUR. Whereas Leica Camera has a revenue of 365mio EUR.

[photonius]

Well, Pentax is the last "major" manufacturer sticking solely to DSLRs - so yes - they are the last of the mohicans.

---

Oh man, it's their 100th anniversary this year!

Maybe the management wants to have a big celebration with lots of perks and Champagne before folding?

[Klaus]

Would be sad though - the cameras are pretty nice actually.
The pancake lenses are something that is still not matched today in terms of size.

[toni-a]

It's not huge, yet Pentax brand is still profitable, Ricoh is making money from Pentax and they seem satisfied with that, good for them.
The day it will stop being profitable for them, they would sell it, many Chinese manufacturers with deep pockets will be happy to acquire it... Just like Hasselblad.
So no Pentax is not going to die

[davidmanze]

It's not huge, yet Pentax brand is still profitable, Ricoh is making money from Pentax and they seem satisfied with that, good for them.
The day it will stop being profitable for them, they would sell it, many Chinese manufacturers with deep pockets will be happy to acquire it... Just like Hasselblad.
So no Pentax is not going to die

Thank you for those reassuring words Toni ...............
"
             .......... does this prediction come from gazing optimistically into one of the new DA* optically ground and polished HD coated "crystal balls" ....... 


                              ........ or the much more profitable molded Chinese generic copies that have trouble handling extreme aberrations? ..................

[Kunzite]

People dancing on Pentax' grave, same old story... and the grave is still empty. Schadenfreude, yet the misfortune is in large part imagined. And insults directed at those who don't do the same dance. What a nice bunch of people!

Smart Vision is a very lean business, not including many other imaging products (like automotive and factory automation). Its sales... well, Smart Vision isn't big enough to have separate numbers; but they're going upwards: "Smart Vision business revenues and earnings both up, reflecting brisk demands for new models". They did that while pretty much everyone else decreased.
I would be more worried about Olympus.

[JJ_SO]

While I had a little nap next to the empty grave, I just looked up Smart Vision. Far too much hits - none from Pentax. I even looked up "Pentax Smart Vision", because as guessed, Pentax didn't invent the "vision" wheel. No results - one needs to look for "Ricoh Smart Vision" to get Google results. Although the lenses of our machine's workpiece position detection are from Pentax.

But that's about it. Lenses, no sensors, no software. And especially no relevant cameras.

You're dancing in the shadow of a big Ricoh-tree next to the Pentax grave. Ricoh will survive, for sure. Pentax might become a brand name like Voigtländer, Rollei, Yashica, but I doubt any of the Chinese manufacturers like Aputure, Yongnuo, Laowa want to give up their brand to sail under Pentax flag. Sony also doesn't use Konica or Minolta to sell their products.

But as I said: Just because a third party developer is giving up the developments for a certain brand, the brand itself will not necessarily die. Apple also was often called dead, and apparently being called dead is not that kind of unhealthy statement as one would guess at first.

[Kunzite]

Smart Vision is the name of a Ricoh business group, one which includes or likely is formed exclusively from Ricoh Imaging (I couldn't find an indication about something else being included).
It's not a technology, it doesn't have consumer visibility. What were you expecting?

Pentax will not be sold to the Chinese, because it's not up for sale. If it were, I'd be very, very worried - because it would end like "Yashica", rather than the silly notion of a super-rich Chinese owner pumping tons of money into a declining market.

[Klaus]

The strange thing about Pentax is - at this sales volume, camera development becomes unsustainable really. Unlike lens design, new cameras are expensive - less so due to hardware (mostly standard components) but software. They can barely afford new DSLRs and we know the situation on the mirrorless side. The logical thing to do would be to transform themselves into an independent lens manufacturer - like Zeiss. Zeiss also abandoned cameras because they weren't able to compete anymore (a long time ago). However, it seems as if Pentax has - at least to some degree - outsourced their lens R&D to Tokina/Tamron.