Leica Camera Group has concluded its 2025/2026 financial year with turnover of €573 million, supported by international expansion, major new product launches and continued demand for the German camera maker’s premium products. The result comes during an important period for Leica, with the company celebrating 100 years since the introduction of the Leica I while simultaneously expanding its retail network and pushing the M system into new technological territory.
Leica reaches €573 million in annual revenue
Leica Camera Group reported €573 million in turnover for the 2025/2026 financial year.
Rather than relying solely on its long-established reputation among photographers, Leica says its growth has been supported by a broader international strategy encompassing new Leica stores, an expanded global sales network and continued product development.
The company now has approximately 120 Leica Stores and 30 Leica Galleries worldwide, giving the brand a significant physical presence despite operating in what is increasingly a digitally driven camera market.
For Leica, these spaces serve a purpose beyond conventional retail. Stores, galleries, exhibitions and photographic events have become part of the wider Leica ecosystem, positioning the company around photography and photographic culture rather than simply the sale of cameras and lenses.
Leica M EV1 marks a major change for the M system
One of the most important new products highlighted by Leica was the Leica M EV1.
The camera represents a significant development for Leica’s iconic M family as the first M-series camera with an integrated electronic viewfinder.
It is a notable departure for a product line historically defined by its optical rangefinder.
While Leica has continued to develop the M system technologically over successive generations, the introduction of an integrated EVF potentially broadens the appeal of the system to photographers who value the character and compact dimensions of M lenses but prefer electronic focusing and composition.
It also demonstrates Leica’s willingness to reinterpret one of the most recognisable camera designs in photography rather than simply preserve it unchanged.
Leica expands further into smartphones
Leica also highlighted its first international smartphone, the Leica Leitzphone powered by Xiaomi.
Smartphone photography has become an increasingly important component of Leica’s broader strategy.
Its partnership with Xiaomi allows Leica’s imaging brand, photographic expertise and visual identity to reach an audience far larger than the traditional premium-camera market.
For a company whose dedicated cameras occupy the upper end of the photographic market, collaborations in mobile photography provide another way for Leica to introduce its brand and photographic philosophy to new generations of photographers.
100 years of the Leica I
The financial year also coincided with one of the biggest milestones in Leica’s history: the 100th anniversary of the Leica I.
First presented in 1925, the Leica I helped establish the 35mm format as a practical tool for still photography and ultimately contributed to a fundamental change in how photographers could work.
Leica marked the anniversary internationally through exhibitions, events and special-edition products.
According to the company, demand for its anniversary editions and the response to its international exhibitions demonstrated the continuing strength of the Leica community.
That heritage remains one of Leica’s greatest commercial assets.
Few camera companies can connect their contemporary products so directly with a century of photographic history. Leica continues to make that history an active part of its current brand rather than treating it purely as nostalgia.
Strong interest in Leica pre-owned cameras
Another interesting detail in Leica’s announcement was its reference to sustained interest in Leica pre-owned equipment.
The second-hand market is particularly important to a brand such as Leica because cameras and lenses frequently remain in use for decades.
Many historic M lenses can continue to be used on modern M bodies, while the relatively slow evolution of the underlying M mount has created an enormous ecosystem of compatible equipment.
A strong certified or dealer-supported pre-owned market can also provide a more accessible entry point into the Leica system while reinforcing the perception that Leica cameras have value beyond their initial ownership period.
Leica’s unusual position in the modern camera market
Leica occupies a fascinating position within photography.
It competes in a world where smartphones have replaced compact cameras for millions of consumers, while major manufacturers such as Sony, Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm and Panasonic continue to advance increasingly sophisticated mirrorless systems.
Leica has taken a different route.
Rather than competing primarily on specifications or attempting to dominate the mass market, it has concentrated heavily on premium products, design, craftsmanship, photographic heritage and the experience surrounding the brand.
The €573 million turnover reported for 2025/26 suggests that there remains a substantial international market for that proposition.
It is also evidence that the market for dedicated photographic equipment has not disappeared. Instead, part of it has evolved towards photographers who increasingly view cameras as specialist tools—and, in Leica’s case, as objects combining engineering, design and photographic culture.
Heritage and innovation are becoming increasingly intertwined
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Leica’s latest results is the contrast between its past and its future.
During the same period in which Leica celebrated 100 years of the Leica I, it introduced an M camera with an integrated electronic viewfinder and expanded its presence in computational smartphone photography.
Those developments might once have seemed contradictory for a company built around the mechanical simplicity of the rangefinder camera.
Instead, Leica appears to be using its heritage as the foundation from which it can experiment.
With €573 million in annual turnover, around 120 Leica Stores, approximately 30 Leica Galleries and an expanding international audience, the company’s challenge will now be maintaining the exclusivity and character that made Leica distinctive while continuing to attract photographers whose expectations of a camera are very different from those of a century ago.
For Leica, 2025/26 therefore looks like more than another successful financial year.
It represents a company celebrating its first century while actively deciding what Leica should mean in its second.
