The publication of the The Economist, The World in 2012, makes for interesting reading. One interesting observation is the prediction that China will be the place where money can be earned while the West’s economy will falter. In particular Europe will be losing its share of the world market and might become a niche resort. A well-respected Indian economist even notes that the prosperity of the West in the last 200 years is an anomaly: China and India were the biggest economies from year 1 to year 1800 and will become again the biggest economies after 2020.
It is therefore logical that European manufactures are increasingly focused on these markets, where an affluent and growing middle class will buy the luxury goods from Europe. The recent interview with Mr. Kaufmann acknowledges these trends: Leica will concentrate their marketing efforts for future expansion in this part of the globe. This may be smart, but is also obvious. And there are three dangers involved in this strategy: (1) the products may fail to capture the attention of the markets; (2) the products will succeed, but production has to shift to China and may not stay in Germany and (3) products will change and adapt to accommodate the tastes of the new buyers.
All three strategies could have tremendous impact on the current range of photographic products. The M-system evolution will doubtlessly be cared for for a long period, but there are snags here. More and more the (real or putative) limits and weaknesses of the mechanical-optical rangefinder mechanism are being noted in all kinds of reports and comments (most recently in the German magazine Photographie when they compared the M9-P to the Ricoh GRX with M-module). Canon with the EOS-1D X has delivered a clear statement: any new photographic product needs to have cinematographic capabilities of the highest order to succeed in the market and the inclusion of Live View is self-evident. The M-system might need to evolve into a high-end compact mirror-less system camera to stay successful in the new Far-eastern markets, but it will be a totally different system from the one we now love and like and cherish.
The size of the market is vast and no manufacturer can win a share by simply stating that they have hand-built products in short supply with long waiting periods. To satisfy the demand any Leica camera needs to be mass-produced or at least produced in high volumes. The manufacturers of classical mechanical watches (the best-known is A. Lange und Söhne) have not been able to solve this conflict and rely on very high prices and limited supplies to satisfy their clientele. But then a luxury watch is a different proposition than a photographic camera.
A Leica M camera needs to be redesigned substantially to make it adaptable for a higher volume production and might loose much of its character and DNA in the course of this redesign. For Leica M lenses the arguments are identical: a redesign of the mechanics is needed to allow for a larger volume manufacture and assembly.
The Leica production technology will resemble the characteristics of the high-end Japanese and Korean manufacturers that combine quality with volume. If this is possible in the newly designed Wetzlar Park or only in the Far-East is a big question mark.
We live in a fascinating period and I would guess that it takes five years to see to what profile Leica is really evolving.