CIPA reports first sign of recovery in the system camera business. But forecast looks bad due the earhtquake.

The recent financial report from Olympus and Panasonic showed some sign of recovery in their imaging segment (which includes digital camera and other business). The trend seems to be confirmed by the latest March 2016 CIPA reports. For the first time in two years Japanese companies shipped more cameras than the previous year (and did even better than March of two years ago). But the good news may last shortly. As I heard from my sources the Kumamoto earthquake damaged many factories producing sensor or other camera parts. And I expect at least 3 months of supply shortage and product announcement delays. This means camera shipment in May-June-July will easily be much lower than in 2015.

We have to hope that after the Photokina announcement Olympus and Panasonic will face no problem in shipping the E-M1II and GH5 before the end fo the year.

via Mirrorlessrumors.