Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/02/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Stephen Kobrin wrote: >An article in this morning's Financial Times said that Leica is to cut >costs after sales dropped by 47% in Asia. It noted that sales and profits >fell sharply in the closing months of 1997 and that the company was about >to embark on cost-cutting and streamlining of its product range. snip >This is a bit hard to square with news of the new M6 and the new 28-35-50 >lens. It may explain the long lag in getting replacement lenses recently >reported by a number of people on the LUG. It makes perfect sense that Leica's sales have dropped in Asia in light of the recent economic turmoil. On the other hand, the new additions were hardly split second decisions. The M6HM is likely to sell pretty well, since it differentiates from the existing product line and was probably a low-cost addition to their line anyway. As far as the "trimar" goes, if Leica has already spent the money on research and development, it might as well bring the product to market and try to recoup the costs.