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Samsung silently slinks away

Samsung seems to have finally slunk away from the photographic industry with the discontinuance of the NX1, arguably the best APS-C interchangeable lens camera to date, and the equally impressive NX500.

Dead man walking: The Samsung NX1 is still available on the Camera House website, 'No Longer Available' on the DCW website.
Dead man walking: The Samsung NX1 is still available at full RRP on the Camera House website, but ‘No Longer Available’ on the DCW website.

There is still no formal announcement. The last we heard from Samsung was the weasely comment in January that ‘we do not have any official (our emphasis) plans to withdraw from the camera business. We still have employees working in the division.’

It’s been left to Samsung’s retailer customers to quietly delete the range. The NX500 was apparently discontinued on March 8 in the US and the NX1 this week, according to overseas photo rumour sites watching ‘Discontinued’ notices go up on camera retailing websites. While the NX500 has been largely taken down from camera sales websites, the NX1 is still being offered by some retailers here and offshore, including the Camera House website. B&H had the NX1 marked as discontinued last week, only to have it bounce back into its inventory this week!

Appallingly, Samsung Australia still seems to be promoting these products at full RRP from its own online store, with no indication the camera business has been abandoned. Surely the company is not attempting to offload its inventory of effectively obsolete stock onto unsuspecting consumers?

Samsung’s handling of the withdrawal from the camera market is equal parts arrogance and incompetence. One of the world’s largest, richest corporations has scurried away from its failure without outlining any orderly withdrawal or announcing future plans for warranty fulfilment, or availabilty of spare part and lenses. In some parts of the world it appears that it has even discontinued availability of batteries, rendering its cameras prematurely obsolete.

Samsung’s conduct in this matter has been, in  a word, disgraceful.

Here’s some ideas from a disgruntled Samsung camera fan in response to the debacle : The dumbest move ever, must be not supplying spare batteries for a one year old camera.

I would not cost them that much, to ask their users to register, and promise to deliver any current lens, flash, or basic accessory for say the next three years. Promise full support, as in service, to fix broken gear, for a given time period.

As for customer relations, the effect of such a move would be tremendous. It would also help the channel. People feeling like being lied to, is a disaster.

Treating customers like this keeping them in the dark all the while clearly pulling the plug shows them to be nothing but cowards. I was thinking about purchasing a Samsung TV when I upgraded… Not now… I have 2 Samsung phones and a Samsung tablet and when any of those products come time to upgrade, it will not be a Samsung Product.

From December, 2015: Samsung lets rumours ruin camera business.

 

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