Re: [Leica] CL Profitability

[Peterson_Art@hq.navsea.navy.mil]

     Stephen,
     
     Yes, I'd like to see a better explanation of the CL's demise too (as 
     it might lend a bit of substance to my hope that the CL would return 
     to the market), but as I said in my original e-mail, I don't have one.
     
     I am about as far from an expert in these matters as one could find, 
     and I certainly was not questioning your production figures for either 
     the CL or the M5.  I simply cannot believe the scenario you suggested 
     based (presumably) on those production figures, since it would require 
     Leica to have made an unbelievably bad business decision that flew in 
     the face of basic economic sense.  But I suppose anything is possible, 
     and since this is all speculation, I cannot claim to really know.
     
     I did not mean to label the M5 "unpopular" (and neither do I now mean 
     to suggest that it was not unpopular); you know the sales figures, not 
     I, and I'd leave it to you or someone else to describe its popularity. 
     When I said that "You don't kill your hot sellers in order to protect 
     unpopular products," I was merely making a general business statement, 
     and I guess "unpopular" was too conclusive a word.  Perhaps it would 
     have been better to say, "You don't kill your hot sellers in order to 
     protect your poor sellers," or something like that.
     
     However I continue to find some of you argument unconvincing.  You say 
     below that "the CL was not a professional level camera" (and as a non- 
     professional camera user, I would not question that assessment), but 
     then in the very next paragraph you assert that CL sales "probably did 
     eat into M sales severely" (the M clearly being a professional level 
     camera).  And you add, "the entire future of the Leica Rangefinder 
     System was threatened," but it's hard to see why, since even if the M5 
     went out of production (which it did), the CL was still a rangefinder 
     camera that accepted most of the lenses in the Leica M system.  And if 
     "M series production actually stopped for three years between 1976 and 
     1977, due to the fact new M5's went unsold...[because]...the market 
     was temporarily saturated," then why was that market still buying so 
     many CLs?"  Or conversely, if the M5 and CL sold to different markets 
     (professional vs. non-professional), than how could the CL sales "eat 
     into M sales severely?"
     
     Perhaps the problem was not that it was "VERY hard for Leica to sell 
     it's M5's...competing with the CL."  Perhaps the M5 was inherently 
     problematic.  Perhaps if "Unsold new M5's were still on dealer shelves 
     five years after the camera's demise," it was because professional and 
     other photographers wanted a smaller, lighter, and more convenient 
     rangefinder camera, like the M4 that the M5 superseded, or the M4-2 
     that Leica reverted to after the M5 and has essentially continued with 
     through the M6 and M6HM of today, so that only in the absence of an M4 
     type camera, did many of those photographers buy the CL (in addition, 
     of course, to the photographers who would have bought the CL anyway).
     
     But again, I don't really know.  So let me conclude by saying that I 
     raise these questions and make these speculations NOT in a contention 
     that I'm right and you're wrong, but ONLY as an offering of "food for 
     thought" in the interest of constructive dialog where I have doubts.
     
     Art Peterson
     

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: [Leica] CL Profitability
Author:  leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us at internet
Date:    2/13/98 2:57 PM

     
 Art,
     
Consider that  the CL was not a professional level camera, although it 
was certainly a great little camera.
     
In that context CL sells probably did eat into M sales severely--at 
least in the short run.  Yet the Leica Rangefinder System's  future was 
clearly very serious amateurs and professionals.
     
If the M line did not stay in production due to lack of sales, the 
entire future of the Leica Rangefinder System was threatened.
     
The figures I quoted for productions of the M4 and M5 are easily 
verified.  The allotted figures quoted for the CL are also easily 
verified.
     
Strangely enough, Leica has NEVER released the true production figures 
for the CL, even though its over 20 years ago.
     
It was VERY hard for Leica to sell it's M5's new competing with the
CL.   Unsold new M5's were still on dealer shelves five years after the 
camera's demise.      In contrast, the CL's were long gone.
     
M series production actually stopped for three years between 1976 and 
1977, due to the fact new M5's went unsold.   In contrast to the CL!
     
You state  "You don't kill your hot sellers in order to protect 
unpopular products."    It wasn't that the M cameras were unpopular, it 
was that the market was temporarily saturated.   In the long view of 
things both cameras could not survive, and the CL could not survive by 
itself because it was not a professional quality camera.
     
If you choose not believe the above scenario, fine, but I would 
appreciate seeing  a better one to explain the known facts.
     
Regards,
     
Stephen Gandy