Nikon today un-announced a number of camera products, ranging from the lowest Coolpix to apparently not-yet-announced products (e.g. things like a possible D5x).
“We did so well in 2016 announcing products that we never delivered that we decided to go a step further this year,” said Takehiko Go, recently appointed to the new position of Director of Obsolescence at the company. "Our overall product margins increased enormously by not shipping the DL cameras, so we're now taking this to the next level. We expect our gross profit margin for the fiscal year to be the highest it's ever been in the digital camera era."
Along with the un-announcement of more products, it was also revealed that the entire product management team now reports to Go-san, which should facilitate the un-announcement of future products, as well.
Meanwhile, previous generations of cameras now have additional rebates on them in order to clear room for more products that will be un-announced in the future. Also, because unannounced products require less support, Nikon has announced further plans to cut marketing, sales, customer support, and repair services around the world. "With the additional savings from lower support needs, we expect to be highly profitable for some time," said Go-san.
Curiously, Nikon wouldn't identify the models that have actually been cancelled. According to Go-san "announcing which existing products are cancelled would hurt their final sales, and as we learned from the DL situation, announcing then un-announcing a product users never were able to handle actually hurt our reputation, so we also won't be disclosing future models that are going to be un-announced."
One additional point that Go-san made in his press conference was this: "Nikon is known for legacy lens support. All of the un-announced ILC cameras support all of our lenses dating back to 1959, and all future cameras that will be un-announced will also fully support the F-mount, confirming our desire to keep our loyal customer base happy."
As far as I can tell, the new full Nikon camera lineup is:
But I'm not entirely sure about that last one.
Amazingly, I've been getting people who believe the article and tell me that the bulleted cameras aren't appearing correctly! This has picked up once April 1st passed on by. All I can say is "gotcha."
