Nikon has plans to spend ¥25 billion ($160 million) on consolidating its lens manufacturing into two new buildings in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo, to focus on making high-end lenses.
Nikon previously had over a dozen manufacturing locations, and will move into the two new buildings in March 2028.
This is all part of Nikon’s plan to reduce its overall operational costs by 59 percent after struggling with competition in an already shrinking market.
Sales of interchangeable lens cameras have continued to plummet in recent years, to about a tenth of their peak. Nikon will, therefore, focus on high-end lenses in Japan and make its production line more resistant to changes in demand by allowing it to flexibly change production items.
However, this move also seems to suggest that Nikon is renovating their domestic lens production systems, despite signaling the opposite when it closed down its factories in Fukushima and Yamagata in 2021.
The two new factories in Tochigi will be bigger and better equipped than before.
Nikon currently manufactures lenses in both Japan and Thailand, with the Japanese factories mainly focusing on high-end models.
The rise in high-end camera phone technology has seen the sales of cameras plummet, causing Nikon and other brands to lose a lot of revenue, and Nikon moved all its camera manufacturing to Thailand in 2021.
DSLR’s simply couldn’t compete with the camera phone revolution and have all but disappeared, however, retro cameras have had a huge resurgence in popularity in recent years, especially with younger audiences.
The Nikon Zf has proven a great success with customers in their thirties and forties, leading to a recent change in marketing strategy from the brand. To help target this new demographic Nikon began utilizing social media, which they said was key to the success of the Zf.
Take a look at our guide to the best Nikon cameras, and Nikon lenses on the market.
You can also check out our guide to the best retro cameras around.
