Nikon lost a record amount of money last fiscal year, and things aren’t exactly off to a great start in FY2027. That said, Nikon only lost 0.9 billion yen (under $5.7 million) in the first quarter, a massive improvement versus the over $700 million the company lost in total last year.

While Nikon’s revenue did grow year over year, thanks to “increased sales in business segments outside Imaging Products and foreign exchange tailwinds,” the company’s operating profit was flat. Nikon says overall increased sales and 4.0 billion yen’s worth of US tariff refunds were “offset by lower sales volumes and higher memory prices in Imaging Products” and 4.1 billion yen of inventory write-downs in the company’s Precision Equipment sector. That’s $25.2 million of tariff refunds from the US government, by the way.

Nikon’s Imaging Products Business is a significant part of its overall operations, comprising about 44 percent of Nikon’s overall revenue in the first quarter. The operating profit dipped from 11.1 billion yen in FY2026 Q1 to 8.1 billion yen in the first quarter of this fiscal year. That’s an $18.9 million drop at current exchange rates. Revenue fell 7.1 billion yen, or nearly $44.8 million.

As for decreased revenue, Nikon specifically cites “reduced sales of digital camera-interchangeable lens type” cameras, or ILCs, which it says is mostly driven by “demand contraction” in China. Reduced sales plus higher memory prices dampened profits.

In its forecast for the rest of the year, Nikon says it is contracting its overall ILC market sales projection by 300,000 total units, mainly due to decreased demand in China. Nikon still thinks that the digital ILC market will “remain solid” over the medium- and long-term, though.

Nikon expects the overall ILC market to be 6,700,000 units in FY2027, and believes it will sell 850,000 cameras. The company is not contracting lens sales projections for the overall market, but is cutting its own unit sales from 1,300,000 to 1,250,000 out of a total of 10,000,000 total lens sales.

In FY2026 Q1, Nikon sold approximately 270,000 cameras and 370,000 lenses. In FY2027 Q1, camera sales dropped significantly to 210,000 units, while lens sales dipped to 310,000. Nikon has been relatively quiet on the new camera front, though. Nikon’s last new camera was the video-centric ZR last September.

Nikon doesn’t seem optimistic that the situation will improve much in Q2, as it has decreased its first-half revenue projections for the Imaging Products division by 13 billion yen and dampened profit expectations by 3 billion yen. On the plus side, the company thinks its overall profit will be slightly higher than expected for the entire fiscal year, up a billion yen versus its last projection.

Image creditsHeader photo by Jaron Schneider. Other images by Nikon.