Hasselblad owners, are you ready to own a Chinese camera? If this report from Luminous Landscape is correct, you already are. and no this is not April’s fools. According to Luminous Landscape DJI has increased their shares part in Swedish camera maker Hasselblad and are now the majority share holders. This practically makes them the owners of the company.
Back in November we reported that DJI was strategically investing in Hasselblad, and the brilliant analysis from Kevin Raber now explains why. Moving from stupid blinged camera rebrands to a state of the art medium format mirrorless camera like the H6D takes a lot of money and Hassy just did not have the funds to do it. According to Luminous Landscape:
But that was not enough and Hasselblad needed more money to finish the H6D. According to LL, Sadly, the owners did not have money ot put in and so DJI became the majority stake holder, practically owning the company: While this is still not public domain data, LL says that it has been validated by a number of sources including practically any and everyone who works for Hassy. If that report is true, Hasselblad is likely to change. Just the cultural difference between a Chinese management and a Swedish management is enough to make a big change, but add to that that DJI is not “just” an investor. DJI is heavily invested in the camera industry and will probably want to max their investment. Of course, this could all turn out to be wrong, but LL is pretty confident that this is an accurate description of reality and I tend to trust them. What do you think will be next for Hassy? [the full report, and some brilliant analysis by Kevin Raber is over at luminous-landscape]
