The Ricoh-owned Pentax is one of the few camera companies still committed to DSLRs – but it’s the popularity of Ricoh’s cult-favorite compact camera that’s behind the company’s latest growth. The Ricoh GR series is the main driver behind a return to profitability for the company’s segment that includes imaging, the Japan-based company said in its latest financial report on August 03.
The Ricoh GR series has long been a favorite as a pocketable street photography camera that hides a larger APS-C inside a body that looks like a basic point-and-shoot. But the long-awaited Ricoh GR IV arrived in September 2025 amid a growing trend for compact cameras – and the mix is proving to be a popular one.
Ricoh’s cameras fall under the “Other” category in the company’s financial reports – and with that category not exclusive to imaging, the company’s financial reports don’t often indicate how well cameras are selling. But the company’s latest report attributes significant growth to the category to strong camera sales.
Compared to the first quarter of 2025 – when the Ricoh GR IV had yet to launch – the category that includes cameras has shifted from a negative 1.4 billion yen ($8.9 million / £6.6 million / 12.6 million / CA$12.5 million) operating profit to a positive .3 billion yen ($1.9 million / £1.4 million / AU$2.7 million / CA$2.68 million).
“The camera business continued to perform strongly, driven mainly by the RICOH GR series, resulting in higher sales and profit,” said Director and CFO Takashi Kawaguchi.
Excluding the impact of currency exchange, sales were up by 27.7 percent in the “other” category over the same time last year, Ricoh said.
While the GR IV series is a key highlight for Ricoh, the last few months haven’t been without their challenges – and the company noted potential price changes – but didn’t specify which products – amid increasing costs for memory driven by AI demand. “At the same time, we will mitigate cost increases stemming from rising prices of semiconductor memory, petroleum-related materials, and other inputs through pricing measures and reviews of our cost structure,” Kawaguchi said in the report.
The Ricoh GR IV that launched in September 2025 was just the start of a fresh wave of models for the popular series. That initial launch has already been followed by the Ricoh GR IV HDF – which gives the pocketable camera a built-in diffusion filter – and the Ricoh GR IV Monochrome, a pocketable camera dedicated entirely to black-and-white photography.
The Ricoh GR IV arrived in a rapidly growing list of new compact cameras – yet the series is one of the few advanced compact series that fit an APS-C sensor into a truly pocketable body. The camera’s mix of size and image quality immediately won me over. The camera’s burst speed and video specs may lag behind, but the GR IV is rare in its ability to cram an APS-C sensor into a compact camera that weighs just 262g / 9.2 oz.
When I tried Ricoh’s dedicated black-and-white camera, I was surprised by the low-light boost skipping the colored filters gives the camera – and I could immediately see the compact camera being a favorite for documentary-style work.
If the company’s latest report is any indication, I’m not the only one enamoured with the GR IV series.
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Compare the differences between the Ricoh GR series cameras. Or, browse the best APS-C compact cameras.
