Pentax Profits Fall by 42%
Despite selling their lenses to the likes of BenQ (see next story), Pentax have announced that their first-quarter profits fell by a whopping 42%, largely caused by losses in its photography division. To counteract this, Pentax is expanding its medical equipment and optical component businesses. The Japanese company gave few hints about the long-term future of its photographic unit, other than that some employees from that unit are being moved elsewhere within the company. And there’s also the seemingly inevitable shift to digital SLRs:
”“We’ll shift focus to more profitable single-lens reflex digital cameras, to offset price declines in compact types,” Urano said. Pentax plans to raise the pace of new model introductions to three per year from two, starting this year, he said.”