Nikon Misses the Industry Party – Camera Sales Slip in China While Memory Prices Eat Into Profits

August 10^th, 2026

Nikon Misses the Industry Party – Camera Sales Slip in China While Memory Prices Eat Into Profits

by Nino LeitnerAugust 10^th, 2026

The camera industry keeps finding ways to grow, but somebody forgot to tell Nikon. In its latest quarterly results, covering April to June 2026, the company sold 60,000 fewer cameras and 60,000 fewer lenses than a year ago, imaging revenue slid 8.8% to ¥72.9 billion (around $460 million; all dollar conversions in this article are at roughly ¥158 to the US dollar), and the full-year camera sales target was cut from 910,000 to 850,000 units. The culprits, according to Nikon: shrinking demand in China and the rising price of memory chips.

We have been following this earnings season closely, and until now the story was a happy one. Canon’s cameras are printing money again, Sony just raised its outlook on the back of its sensor business, and CIPA’s first-half 2026 shipment data shows compacts booming and overall shipment value still climbing, even as buyers gravitate toward fewer, pricier products. Nikon’s report, published August 6 on its investor relations site, is the first sour note. So what happened?

Fewer cameras, fewer lenses, thinner margins

Let’s start with the numbers that matter to us. Nikon shipped 210,000 interchangeable lens cameras in the quarter, down from 270,000 a year earlier, and 310,000 lenses, also down 60,000 units. Imaging revenue came in at ¥72.9 billion (around $460 million), a drop of ¥7.1 billion (about $45 million) year over year.

Profit took a bigger hit than revenue. The imaging business earned ¥8.1 billion (about $51 million) in operating profit, down 27.5% from last year, and its operating margin slipped from 14% to 11.1%. In plain terms: Nikon is not just selling fewer cameras, it is also making less money on each one it sells.

Nikon’s imaging revenue and operating profit in fiscal first quarters. Image credit: CineD (data: Nikon IR)

Zoom out one step and the trend becomes hard to ignore. Two years ago, in the April to June quarter of 2024, the imaging business earned ¥17.8 billion (about $113 million) on the back of the Z8 and Zf. Since then, operating profit has fallen in every first quarter: to ¥11.0 billion (around $70 million) last year and ¥8.1 billion (about $51 million) now, a 54% drop from that peak, while revenue slid from ¥83.7 billion to ¥72.9 billion (roughly $530 million to $460 million).

Nikon’s own explanation is refreshingly blunt. “Despite FX tailwinds, revenue was down on reduced sales of DCIL cameras and lenses driven by demand contraction mainly in China,” the presentation states. A weak yen and even a ¥4.0 billion (about $25 million) refund on US tariffs were not enough to offset the slide.

The memory shortage strikes again

The more interesting culprit for our readers is the second one: memory prices. Nikon says higher memory costs, combined with the sales decline, outweighed everything working in its favor this quarter.

If you have been following our coverage, this will sound familiar. Every modern mirrorless camera is stuffed with DRAM; it is what makes fast sensor readout, deep burst buffers, and high-bitrate video modes possible. We broke down the causes in our global memory shortage explainer, watched Blackmagic raise prices on its memory-heavy gear, and saw Sony suspend most of its memory card sales. Nikon’s results are the clearest proof yet that the memory crunch is no longer just making cards and SSDs pricier; it is now squeezing the camera makers themselves, from the inside of the camera body.

Nikon shooters are buying lenses, but body sales are taking a hit. Image credit: CineD

The rest of Nikon is doing fine, by the way

Zooming out for a moment: Nikon as a whole actually grew this quarter. Total revenue reached ¥164.1 billion (roughly $1.04 billion), up ¥6.0 billion (about $38 million) year over year, thanks to its semiconductor lithography, healthcare, and industrial businesses. The group even trimmed its operating loss slightly to ¥0.9 billion (around $6 million) and expects ¥11.0 billion (about $70 million) in operating profit for the full year, ¥1.0 billion more than it did in May.

The downgrade is squarely an imaging story. Nikon now expects its camera and lens business to bring in ¥290.0 billion (about $1.84 billion) this fiscal year, ¥13.0 billion (around $82 million) less than planned, with segment profit cut by ¥3.0 billion to ¥13.0 billion (about $82 million). The camera target drops to 850,000 bodies, while, interestingly, the lens forecast stays put at 1,250,000 units. Nikon shooters are apparently still buying glass, just not new bodies.

What this means for filmmakers

Here is our take. The industry as a whole is managing to grow in value even where unit sales are soft; Nikon is currently down in units, revenue, and profit all at once, and that gap is hard to explain away with China alone. Part of it is likely product cadence: Nikon has launched very little on the imaging side this year, and the Nikon ZR, still the most exciting thing to come out of the RED acquisition, is approaching its first birthday. If you missed it, our ZR review and mini-doc is worth a watch to understand where Nikon’s cinema ambitions stand.

The Nikon ZR remains one of the most interesting propositions for filmmakers that Nikon has made in recent years. In the image: The Nikon team behind the camera. Image credit: CineD

The good news is that those ambitions are very much alive. Autofocus Z-mount cinema lenses were teased at NAB 2026, the RED integration keeps deepening, and a quarter like this one increases the pressure to show something new. Slow quarters have a way of accelerating roadmaps.

One weak quarter does not make a crisis, but it does make Nikon the odd one out this earnings season. Is this just a China-shaped speed bump, or a sign that Nikon needs its next ZR moment sooner rather than later? And are rising memory prices changing your own buying decisions? Let us know in the comments below!