On Friday, Reuters reported that Ricoh will be purchasing Pentax‘s camera business; a deal worth approximately $125 million. Pentax finished in 10th place in 2010 in terms of digital camera sales, holding 1.5% of the market. Apparently Hoya purchased Pentax back in 2007 to gain access to their medical technology, and wasn’t too interested in keeping the camera line in their portfolio. Ricoh will have a hard time with their new investment however, as Pentax sales have dropped 13% from a year ago.

Japanese optical glass-maker Hoya said on Friday it would sell its Pentax camera business to copier and printer maker Ricoh , in a deal the Nikkei business daily said was worth about 10 billion yen ($124.2 million).

Battling falling prices for its compact cameras, Ricoh hopes to establish a presence in the profitable upmarket single-lens reflex camera segment, the Nikkei business daily said. – Reuters

Link: Hoya Press Release

[ MaximumTech via Reuters]