Nikon Corp. share price down, faces criticism from CCTV over its D600 cameras

One of Nikon Corp.s spokesmen – Ryota Satake – announced on a telephone call that the company will stop selling its D600 digital camera model in China due to a government order it received today. The company also said that it will offer free repairs on claims that report for “black spots” defects on photographs. Nikon Corp. asked dealers to cease sales.

As reported by the Financial Times, Nikon Corp. released the statement only a couple of hours after a CCTV broadcast, saying that the company “pays great attention to CCTVs report on the Nikon D600” and measures had been taken in February this year in order to address the quality concerns on its products.

The company was struck by criticism coming from the state broadcaster CCTV, which claimed that Nikon was selling products with defects. Nikon was also accused of offering poor customer service due to a refusal to replace the defective parts or fix the broken cameras.

The Financial Times cited the companys words that were published on the Chinese version of Twitter – Weibo: “Nikon will continue providing quality service to consumers in China, based on an attitude that it takes responsibilities to its customers.”

This was the reason why Nikon Corp. entered the programme 3.15 on World Consumer Rights Day, March 15th, and became the first Japanese company that has been included in the program. Some analysts consider that it based on the decaying political situation concerning the disputed territory of islands in the East China Sea. Until now, only European and U.S. companies had faced such criticism by CCTV. Some of the previously “targeted” companies were McDonalds, Carrefour, Apple Inc., Volkswagen AG, Procter & Gamble, and others.

One of the partners in A.T. Kearney – Mr. Torsten Stocker commented the situation in a telephone interview for Bloomberg: “Im sure some of the big Western multinationals are breathing a collective sigh of relief that they werent targeted.” Mr. Stocker also said: “Maybe they are just trying to show that they are looking at a broad range of companies, not just foreign companies.”

Nikon Corp. fell by 1.65% in Tokyo to settle the session at 1 730 yen, marking a one-year change of -23.52%. The company is valued at 693 billion yen. According to the Financial Times, the 18 analysts offering 12-month price targets for Nikon Corp. have a median target of 1 916.5 yen, with a high estimate of 2 500 yen and a low estimate of 1 350 yen. The median estimate represents a 8.95% increase from the previous close of 1 759 yen.