Pentax: Two new compact film cameras planned - Pentax 17 announced June 2024

[halfaman]

As I understood this, it is the development of more film cameras what has been stopped.

 

[koraks]

Hmm I now cannot find the article where I read about 20% of Ricoh sales being the Pentax 17 but it probably meant to refer to the Photo division.

It's unclear to me where such a figure would have come from. Ricoh does not publish financial figures at this detail level. There is also no 'Photo division' in Ricoh; there's a Camera division that's usually listed under the 'Other' category in the business unit overview and it's not clear whether that unit (insofar as it's actually a unit; it's typically Japanese-vague) is the only within the 'Other' category or not. The 'Other' category accounts for something like 1.5% of Ricoh's revenue. Breakdown of revenue within this unit towards specific product lines is not given, as is customary for companies of this nature.

The only 20% reference I could find is a post of yourself dated March 26 of this year. You didn't provide a reference back then either.

This is a typical case of "I think a spoke to a guy who read something about some bloke who heard a rumor that..." and before you know it, it's a 'fact'.

We don't know how many Pentax 17's were sold and we're likely never going to find out either.

The only people in a position to say something along the lines of the 20% remark would either be accountants or controllers intimately involved in Ricoh's financial administration or SBU managers; they're bound to secrecy and likely for the most part Japanese and will not go online and make off the record remarks along these lines as they have absolutely nothing to gain by doing so.

 

[Agulliver]

As I understood this, it is the development of more film cameras what has been stopped.

They've certainly paused development of further models. This does not state or imply they've stopped manufacturing the 17 - which the purveyors of clickbait Youtube videos admit at the end of their videos which begin with "shocking news" that Pentax have stopped manufacturing it.

As for the 20% figure, I remember seeing it on one of Pentax/Ricoh's social media feeds. It came from them, but I can't find it now. It could well have been an Instagram story, they expire after a few hours.

 

[koraks]

As for the 20% figure, I remember seeing it on one of Pentax/Ricoh's social media feeds. It came from them, but I can't find it now. It could well have been an Instagram story, they expire after a few hours.

There's not a chance in h*** that a publicly traded company like Ricoh would publish this kind of specific financial data on their IG.

 

[Cholentpot]

There's not a chance in h*** that a publicly traded company like Ricoh would publish this kind of specific financial data on their IG.

Not to be political but far more sensitive stuff has been said over whatever platforms in the recent past...

 

[koraks]

Not to be political

Well, quite so - we're not talking about politics here. This is business. You don't get consent from Corp. Comm to post figures like these on IG. Especially not in Japan.

 

[Pioneer]

Regardless I have not seen any corporate communication for some time regarding the further development of more film cameras. I could have missed something since I do not track all of Ricoh's communication. But do subscribe to some photo publications and I would expect something of this nature would make the news in some of those rags. So far not a thing. They are not even talking about Pentax cameras let alone the 17. Has Pentax even advertised the camera in the last 3 months?

 

[4season]

There hasn't been a lot of Ricoh / Pentax news in the past year, but in 2024, camera sales "performed well".

https://pentaxrumors.com/2025/06/30/ricoh-imaging-japan-reported-record-profit/

And Ricoh promoted film at Bild Expo:

https://pentaxrumors.com/2025/06/20/pentax-ricoh-booth-at-the-2025-bild-expo-in-nyc/

 

[Thwyllo]

I am not sure where the 20% number comes from, as I am not aware that Ricoh gives that kind of detail.

But if it is true, I imagine it would be for Ricoh Imaging Company, Ltd., and not the Ricoh company or group as a whole.

Even that cannot be true as the GRIII and it's variants are documented as Ricoh's biggest seller by a mile.

 

[Thwyllo]

Yeah, there's no way Pentax has ceased production of the 17. I was at BILD in New York a couple weeks ago and a large part of the Pentax booth was Pentax 17 focused. You don't spend that much tradeshow space on a discontinued product.

....unless you can't sell enough of it