Canon Can't Meet the Demand for RF Lenses

Canon Can't Meet the Demand for RF Lenses

Canon recently released a list of RF lenses that it cannot meet the demand for. Is this simply poor planning or a clear sign that its new lenses are exceeding expectations?

A few days back Canon Japan published a list of RF lenses that the company is unable to meet the demand for. These lenses include:

In its statement, Canon Japan said that orders had exceeded expectations and apologized for any inconvenience. You can see the statement in full here.

When I saw this statement I couldn't help thinking back to my own experiences when I bought the Canon EOS R5 and some RF lenses, including the Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1L IS USM listed above. From the date of order, it took almost four months until I'd received everything. Naturally, I put a lot of that down to the chaos caused to supply chains and so forth, but even so, I was still a little bewildered that Canon would go on such a huge, global marketing blitz as it did with the new EOS R5 and other RF lenses if it knew it couldn't supply customers with their newly paid for gear. Conversely, perhaps they hadn't expected such a big demand for their new cameras and RF mount lenses. If that was the case, their sales and marketing department needed a serious overhaul, I thought.

Yet here we are, almost a year on, and Canon is still saying that demand has exceeded expectations and supply is thin as a result. Whatever way you spin it, I think it's really poor business acumen by Canon. Great that demand is high, sure, but quite embarrassing for a global company such as Canon to admit it has a severe shortage of a number of newly released and highly spruiked products.

What are your thoughts? 

Iain Stanley's picture

Iain Stanley is an Associate Professor teaching photography and composition in Japan. Fstoppers is where he writes about photography, but he's also a 5x Top Writer on Medium, where he writes about his expat (mis)adventures in Japan and other things not related to photography. To view his writing, click the link above.

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