Fujifilm X100VI Production
Fujifilm told us that they are making 15,000 Fujifilm X100VI units a month.
But given the astronomical preorders for the Fujifilm X100VI, many were wondering if that would be enough to avoid the same shipping disaster we experienced with the X100V.
And we told you in past articles that this also depends on:
- how many people preordered at several stores but intend to keep only the fastest-shipping X100VI order and cancel the other orders
- how many units Fujifilm has produced ahead of launch
We investigated the first point in a dedicated survey and so far we can see that 14% of people placed multiple orders. So once the first 2-3 batches are shipped, we can expect a sensible reduction of preorders due to the influx of cancellations.
As far as how well Fujifilm prepared for the X100VI launch, yesterday I followed the live stream of German photographer Thomas B Jones (if you are German make sure to follow his YouTube channel).
During the live stream he told us that he was testing a “final hardware production X100VI” since November 2023, and that Fujifilm is basically producing X100VI’s at full power since a couple of months already.
So at this point we can assume that Fujifilm is manufacturing 15,000 Fujifilm X100VI units per month since at least November, which would mean a total of about 60,000 units were made before the X100VI announcement in February.
However, I’d not be surprised if Fujifilm would be making those since even longer.
In fact, I was contacted by the former “head of the production engineering department” (for another company) with an extremely detailed overview on how these things work.
He told me that they generally started to produce the goods 4 – 6 months before they shipped out to the retail stores, because (for the products he made) usually 80% of the annual sales were made within the first 3 – 4 months of a new product introduction.
The email he wrote me was very detailed and insightful (thanks). If anyone wants to take a look behind the scenes and how such things are organized, I share it as PDF here (I kept the person anonymous, but if you want I can add you in the file and link to your accounts… let me know via rumor box in case).
Anyway, back to the X100VI.
Based on everything we said above, we can assume that Fujifilm has so far produced anything between 60,000 and 90,000 units.
Now that would be enough for pretty much any digital camera in the last 15 years. But we are talking Fujifilm X100VI, the most successful digital camera the photography industry has seen in decades. So this might not be sufficient to match the initial demand.
But it is a solid starting point which makes hope that at least those, who ordered in the first 1 to 3 days won’t have to wait that long to get their camera shipped.
And ignore that China numbers for the reasons we explained here.
Fujifilm is aware that the true success of the X100VI is intricately tied to the number of units dispatched. And I am sure delivering X100VI’s as quickly as possible will be their Nr.1 priority for 2024.
