Why did disappear brands like Minolta and Yashica in the Photo industry?

Well, maybe this is not the space for praising the well done jobs from Nikon and Canon; the struggles of Olympus and Pentax -even the tremendous force of newcomers like Sony, Panasonic and Samsung-, but I've always wanted to know what happened in the Minolta and Yashica departures? Were day 'bad brands'? Did they do things wrong?

Actually Minolta was purchased by Sony in 2005, so the legacy Minolta auto-focus lenses can be used on any of the Sony Alpha dSLR cameras

People seem to think that "digital" cameras are inexpensive to use (because you do not have to buy rolls of film and pay for the cost of processing)

In reality, the cost of research, design and manufacturing of them is probably about five times more costly than the making of a 35 mm camera and since the technology is in the camera, camera companies can't make small updates in their cameras and continue selling camera.

With 35 mm cameras, the technology is in the film, so a person can use a 40 year old 35 mm SLR and still produce amazing images using the same film used in a 5 year old camera

The financial pressures of producing up to date digital cameras was just too much for many of the very popular (but low production) 35 mm camera makers

This happened to Leica's R Series SLR cameras as well as the very precision and expensive Alpa cameras

http://www.leicapages.com/r9.html

http://www.alpareflex.com/Cameras/11.htm

Minolta cameras was bought by Sony. The brand has since cease to exist in cameras.

Yashica was acquired by Kyocera who eventually sold the trademark to some Hong Kong company. Low-end digital cameras bearing the Yashica name are still in production.

They were good brands. Fierce competition and poor economy contributed to their downfall.

Pentax is merely surviving. It is under it's second owner in just a few years. Hopefully after coming from Hoya, Ricoh will do better taking good care of the brand.

Minolta was a good brand, but not so much of a leader as Canon and Nikon and Pentax. Yashica was always a minor brand. Minolta was taken over by Sony in about 2005, so that lens mount still is in use. You could also aak about Ricoh, which used to make cameras, but now does other things.

You could also remark on the 'fall' of Vivitar, once a respected independent lens maker, well up with Tamron and Sigma. Sadly it was taken over by Hanimex and now only produces cheap (and probably nasty) digicams.

Well, the Minolta heritage through Sony in not what many people think… I mean, the two companies have followed very different paths: Quality and tradition vs. Design and Marketing… Guess who is who?
Yashica might had been a minor brand as has been said by someone, but in many ways they delivered theis followers just what they wanted: excellent and simple cameras that could easily rival their poweful and rich enemies…
Nice memories that are still alive!