Nikon's profits tumble thanks (in part) to Trump's tariffs

Nikon has announced its Q1 financial results for the summer 2025 period, in which both revenue and profits have fallen, largely due to the impact of unfavorable exchange rates and the imposition of tariffs by the US government under Donald Trump.

The financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year (April-June 2025) showed that while sales remained strong, the impact of foreign exchange rates and tariffs led to lower revenue and profits compared to the same period last year. Nikon's full-year forecast also reflects the impact of tariffs, predicting lower revenue and profits.

This is despite healthy sales of mirrorless cameras, particularly the Z5 II and Z50 II models, and Z-series lenses. A decline in average selling prices is mainly due to the impact of foreign exchange rates and the tariffs that the US has imposed on goods manufactured outside the country. The lower selling prices of the Z5 II and Z50 II are also factors.

The figures for Nikon's imaging business show that for April-June 2025, sales revenue was 80 billion yen (down -3.7 billion yen compared to April-June 2024) and the operating profit was 11 billion yen (down -6.8 billion yen). This is despite the company shipping 270,000 interchangeable lens digital cameras (an increase of +40,000 units) and 370,000 lenses (broadly the same as the same period in the previous year).

Breaking down revenue by region shows that Nikon is now making more revenue from China than the US. The April-June 2025 figures show that the company made 22,141 million yen from sales in China, 19,399 million yen from the United States, 15,367 million yen from Europe, and 7,439 million yen from Japan, with the rest of the world contributing 15,688 million yen.

It will be interesting to see how Nikon's revenues will be affected by the tariffs imposed in the US from August onwards, but Nikon has taken this into account and revised its full-year forecast downwards, predicting full year revenues for April 2025-March 2026 of 287 billion yen (down -8.3 billion yen) and an operating profit of 32 billion yen (down -9.3 billion yen).