Business
Kodak faces financial struggles even as Gen Z sparks a film resurgence
Rolls of Kodak Gold film hang on a shelf at the Precision Camera & Video store on August 12, 2025 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
Clair Sapilewski has dozens of rolls of camera film ready to use in her cupboard at all times.
A photography major at American University, the 21-year-old said she always keeps her film stocked to achieve that aesthetic that only film cameras can capture.
“It teaches you how to slow down, how to look at things more carefully and how to choose your shots more wisely,” she said.
It’s part of an ongoing trend as members of Generation Z have taken an interest in film cameras. Sapilewski said while her professors taught her the basics, she and her friends have used their film cameras to develop photos that their iPhones can’t quite replicate.
And in her college circle, the most popular brand for camera film is Eastman Kodak, a company she calls a “household name.”
“Pretty much everybody uses Kodak films — the average film user, when they reach for film, is going to reach for Kodak,” Sapilewski said.
But on the other side of the lens, Kodak may be singing a different tune.
The 133-year-old photography company indicated in its second-quarter earnings report on Monday that its finances “raise substantial doubt” in its ability to continue operations as a going concern.
The company reported a net loss of $26 million, down 200% from net income of $26 million for the second quarter of 2024. Kodak also posted a 12% decrease in gross profit with millions in debt obligations.
“Kodak has debt coming due within 12 months and does not have committed financing or available liquidity to meet such debt obligations if they were to become due in accordance with their current terms,” the company wrote in a regulatory filing.
Shares of the company are down more than 15% year to date.
Kodak plans to terminate its retirement pension plan and a company spokesperson told CNBC that Kodak aims to use money that it will receive from the settlement to pay off its debts.
“Kodak is confident it will be able to pay off a significant portion of its term loan well before it becomes due, and amend, extend or refinance our remaining debt and/or preferred stock obligations,” the spokesperson said.
This isn’t the first time the company has faced struggles.
Founded in Rochester, New York, in the late 1800s, Kodak rode the wave of photography with a goal of simplifying the process for consumers. But as the era of digital technology took over, the company faced increasing struggles with staying relevant as cameras moved beyond film and disposables.
In the 2000s, the company tried to keep up with the growing trend of digital cameras but struggled, according to Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes, who said Kodak was ignoring concerns at the time about the evolving macroenvironment.
“Digital technology wasn’t ready right away to cut sales of film — but common sense told us differently,” Reitzes wrote in a March note. “At the time, Kodak management told us that film would co-exist with digital cameras and more photos would be taken — and more would need to be printed by Kodak.”
Instead, Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012. It reemerged a year later in 2013 with four main business components: print, advanced materials and chemicals, motion picture, and consumer, which includes cameras and accessories.
A ‘rebellion against digital perfection’
In recent years, however, the retro camera trend has been seeing a resurgence.
In 2020, then-General Manager Ed Hurley told NBC News that Kodak made more than twice the number of film rolls in 2019 than it made in 2015.
And on last year’s third-quarter earnings call, Kodak CEO Jim Continenza said the company was experiencing such high demand for film that it needed to upgrade its Rochester factory.
“Our film sales have increased,” Continenza said at the time. “As we continue to see our commitment and our customer commitment to film, still and motion picture, we are going to continue to invest in that space and continue with that growth.”
According to Fortune Business Insights, the global cinema camera market size is fast growing and estimated to reach $535 million by 2032. The Global Wellness Institute named “analog wellness” — including pre-digital technology — its top trend for 2025.
That growth has been driven in large part by Gen Z, which has turned to old-school aesthetics in what’s been a “divorce” from the hyperrealism of digital photography, according to Alex Cooke, the editor-in-chief of Fstoppers, a photography news site.
“I think there’s this rebellion against digital perfection where film feels real in this kind of hyper-curated Instagram and TikTok world, where images are filtered and Facetuned and algorithm-tested,” Cooke said.
For members of Gen Z, who grew up in the smartphone age, Cooke said this type of photography brings a “nostalgia without lived experience,” where younger people are romanticizing a slower culture and breaking the instant feedback loop.
The aesthetics of film are also at play, Cooke added, with the unique colors and grains capturing something a smartphone could not. Ironically, social media even feeds into amplifying the trend, he said.
Using film cameras and developing that film also plays into a Gen Z trend of digital minimalism, according to Digital Camera World U.S. Editor Hillary Grigonis.
As a professional photographer, Grigonis said she’s seen Gen Z lean into the feeling of “disconnecting” when using film, which provides a more tangible photography experience than smartphones.
“Part of the rise in film photography among Gen Z is likely from that desire to disconnect and the craving for that retro aesthetic,” Grigonis said, adding that she was surprised at Kodak’s financial struggles given the overall rise in demand.
For 25-year-old Madison Stefanis, Kodak was her entry point into the camera world. A Gen Z herself, Stefanis created 35mm Co, a film camera company specifically aimed at making the photography style easy and accessible for her generation.
Stefanis said she’s seen that younger people are leaning into the emotional connection created by the delayed gratification of waiting for photos to be developed, something that’s become “lost in the digital age.”
Because she’s seen Gen Z driving the resurgence of film, Stefanis said she was “shocked” at Kodak’s declaration about its ability to continue as a going concern.
“Gen Z are really craving something they can hold in their hands,” she said. “These days, at least for myself, most of my memories live either in my mind or in my phone, so I think having actual tangible, physical objects where we can store our keepsakes and those key moments feels really special to my generation.”
Business
Explained: On way to 4th largest, how India slipped to 6th rank & what it means for 3rd largest economy dream – The Times of India
In April 2025 when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its World Economic Outlook, India was seen overtaking Japan to become the world’s fourth largest economy by the end of 2025-26. One year later, India has slipped to the sixth position on the largest economies rankings, with the United Kingdom reclaiming its spot as the fifth largest economy.In fact, IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook (April 2026) sees India sitting at the sixth spot this financial year too. This projection comes even as India has grown better than expected in FY26 and is seen retaining its tag of being the world’s fastest growing major economy.What has led to the sudden fall? Why has India dropped to the sixth position, falling behind the UK, instead of overtaking Japan to become the fourth largest economy? And what does this setback mean for its dream of becoming the third largest economy by the end of this decade? We decode:
Data drive: India projected as 4th largest, but fell to 6th spot
First let’s look at some IMF data to see which way the Indian economy was headed in April 2025, and what the April 2026 outlook data suggestsAs per April 2025 estimates of IMF, India’s economy would have been at $4601.225 billion at the end of FY 2025-26, overtaking Japan which was estimated at $4373.091 billion. The UK at the 6th spot was projected to have a nominal GDP of $4040.844 billion.However, as per the April 2026 estimates, India’s economy had a nominal GDP of $4,153 billion at the end of FY 2025-26, with the UK overtaking it with $4,265 billion GDP. Japan’s GDP is seen at $4,379 billion.As the above estimates show, India’s GDP estimates have seen a drop over one year, while UK’s nominal GDP has grown better than expected. Japan has been steady.So, what went wrong? Blame the rupee and GDP data itself!
Rupee Depreciation Blow & New GDP Series
The first thing to understand is that IMF’s data on the size of a country’s nominal GDP is in dollar terms. Hence, with global rankings based on dollar‑denominated GDP, they are highly sensitive to exchange rate movements. The biggest party pooper for India’s dream of becoming the fourth largest has been the rupee’s slide. The Indian currency has depreciated more than expected over the last year, dropping from 84.57 versus the US dollar in 2024 to 88.48 in 2025, as per IMF data. The IMF estimates see it at 92.59 this year.Several factors have contributed to the rupee’s decline, including capital outflows, uncertainty related to India-US trade deal up until February, and the recent Middle East conflict which has raised crude oil prices and India’s import bill. Also, the RBI while actively managing volatility in the forex market, is not targeting any particular level of the rupee.Arun Singh, Chief Economist, Dun & Bradstreet India says that India’s recent slip to sixth place in global GDP rankings does not reflect a weakening of the economy, but is largely the result of currency conversion effects and a one‑time statistical revision.The rupee’s depreciation from 2024 to 2026, has mechanically compressed India’s GDP in dollar terms, effectively halving apparent growth despite strong domestic expansion, says Arun Singh.According to Ranen Banerjee, Partner and Leader, Economic Advisory Services, PwC India, GDP in US dollar terms would shave off with rupee depreciation. “We have had almost 7-8% depreciation over the last few months owing to the conflict and portfolio outflows. Thus, in effect in US dollar terms, it is close to shaving out almost a year’s nominal GDP,” he tells TOI.And it’s not just about the Indian economy. The United Kingdom which has overtaken India to bag the 5th spot again also has economic factors working in its favour. UK’s GDP growth at 0.5% has recently beaten forecasts of 0.1% by a wide margin. Not only that, its currency – pound – has actually appreciated against the US dollar.The second factor that has impacted the rankings is India’s adoption of a new base year for its latest GDP series. As per the new data, which also makes use of a more refined methodology, the size of India’s nominal GDP in rupee terms has gone down. Sample this: As per the older base year of 2011-12, India’s GDP at the end of 2025-26 would have been Rs 35,713,886 crore. But under the new series, it is estimated to be Rs 34,547,157 crore. The new calculation methodology and base year revision presents a more accurate picture of the size of the Indian economy.Hence the currency effect has been compounded by a one‑time downward revision following India’s shift to a new GDP base year, which has lowered reported nominal levels without affecting real activity.
Does India’s drop to 6th indicate fundamental weakness?
Experts are confident that India’s growth story is intact and fundamentally strong, a fact that is reflected in projections of it continuing to be the world’s fastest growing major economy. They see technical factors behind the current slip, rather than any deterioration in economic fundamentals.It’s also interesting to note that while India will be the sixth largest economy in FY27, in the upcoming financial year, it is likely to overtake both the UK, and Japan to bag the fourth spot.Arun Singh of Dun & Bradstreet India explains this resilience with numbers:IMF World Economic Outlook (April 2026) data show that India’s GDP at current prices in domestic currency rose strongly from ₹318 trillion in 2024 to ₹346.5 trillion in 2025 and further to ₹384.5 trillion in 2026, translating into robust nominal growth of about 8.9% in 2024–25 and nearly 11% in 2025–26, among the fastest globally. In contrast, other large economies recorded more moderate domestic nominal growth – around 5% in the US, roughly 4% in China, 3–5% in the UK, 3–3.5% in Germany, and lower or volatile growth in Japan – underscoring India’s strong underlying momentum. In times of global economic turmoil, while GDP growth is expected to take some hit, most agencies and experts have pegged India’s growth to be strong. Incidentally, the IMF has even marginally raised its GDP growth forecast for FY27 to 6.5% despite the ongoing Middle East conflict.
“In India, growth for 2025 is revised upward by 1.0 percentage point relative to October, to 7.6 percent, reflecting the better-than-expected outturn in the second and third quarters of the fiscal year and sustained strong momentum in the fourth quarter,” IMF said in its latest outlook. “For 2026, growth is revised upward moderately by 0.3 percentage point (0.1 percentage point relative to January) to 6.5 percent, led by positive contributions from the carryover of the strong 2025 outturn and the decline in additional US tariffs on Indian goods from 50 to 10 percent, which outweigh the adverse impact of the Middle East conflict. Growth is projected to stay at 6.5 percent in 2027,” it added.
Will India become 3rd largest anytime soon?
The rupee depreciation and the nominal GDP revision has also pushed back India’s dream of becoming the third largest economy by the end of this decade. In the October 2025 estimates, IMF had said that India will overtake Germany to become third largest by FY30. However, the April 2026 projections see it reaching the third rank only by FY 2030-31.Experts point to the rupee’s depreciation versus the dollar to note that the road ahead is likely to be uncertain. Madan Sabnavis, Chief economist, Bank of Baroda is confident that India will continue to do well in the coming years.“We will definitely improve in terms of GDP growth which will be higher than that of other countries especially UK and Japan which are just above us. However, the rupee value will finally determine how India gets placed on the global scale,” he told TOI.Ranen Banerjee of PwC India sees rupee beginning to get support with the conflict containment, relatively lower oil prices and portfolio flow reversals with valuations getting attractive in recent times. “Thus, we should not be experiencing any further sharp depreciation of the rupee in the immediate term provided the conflict does not escalate and oil prices relatively softening from their highs and come down to a range of $85-90 a barrel,” he says.For Arun Singh of Dun & Bradstreet, looking ahead, India’s relative position in US dollar‑based GDP rankings will remain highly sensitive to currency movements rather than domestic growth dynamics. “Continued global dollar strength or capital‑flow volatility may cause periodic slippage in rankings despite robust fundamentals. Sustaining external macro stability and limiting undue rupee volatility will be crucial for India’s strong growth performance to translate more fully into higher global economic rankings,” Arun Singh told TOI.The Indian economy, largely driven by domestic fundamentals, is not immune to external shocks. High US tariffs of 50% from August 2025 to early February, and the ongoing US-Iran war have spelt back-to-back shocks for the economy. Even as experts stress on the resilience of the growth story, the vulnerability to higher crude oil prices, and other global supply chain disruptions is a reality. In such a scenario, India may well have to contend with fluctuating world rankings, while banking on its strong GDP growth to tide over disruptions.
new video loaded: Why Your Paycheck Feels Smaller
By Ben Casselman, Nour Idriss, Sutton Raphael and Stephanie Swart
April 18, 2026
Business
‘It’s just scale’: Local mom-and-pop car dealerships are growing or dying amid industry consolidation, rise of mega-retailers
Derek Sylvester with members of his family, team and mascot Molly, who was featured on the dealership’s logo.
Courtesy Sylvester Chevrolet
Derek Sylvester’s father built the family’s original Chevrolet dealership with his bare hands on Main Street in rural Peckville, Pennsylvania, in 1972.
The store and family have been a pillar of the village, outside Scranton, ever since. That was until late last month, when Sylvester and his family closed a deal to sell Sylvester Chevrolet to a New York-based dealer group.
“As a family, we decided this might be the time,” said Sylvester, who at 67 has been contemplating retirement. “Unless you’re a larger store, a much larger store, it’s a little bit harder to make money. … It’s just scale.”
Many of Sylvester’s family members plan to continue working at the dealership, but he said they didn’t feel they were in a position to continue running the business amid the rapidly changing automotive retail landscape in the U.S. The industry is facing a tumultuous adoption of all-electric vehicles, technological shifts such as artificial intelligence, and growing demands from automakers.
Sales of dealerships such as Sylvester Chevrolet are occurring across the country at a rapid pace as the business of selling cars, once considered the purview of mom-and-pop shops, has evolved into a lucrative trillion-dollar industry rife with consolidation that has drawn more notice from Wall Street and investors in recent years.
While the National Automobile Dealers Association, or NADA, reports that the vast majority of its U.S. franchised dealers are small business owners such as Sylvester who have fewer than six stores, the top retailers in the country have significantly grown.
The top 150 dealers sold 27% of all retail and fleet new vehicles in 2025, up from 24.3% in 2021 and 21.2% in 2015, according to Automotive News’ annual ranking of top automotive retailers. They also owned roughly a quarter of dealerships last year, up from less than 20% a decade ago, according to the trade publication.
Meanwhile, top publicly traded dealers such as Lithia Motors and AutoNation have ballooned to market caps of more than $6 billion each. Even online used-car retailer Carvana — and its $74 billion market cap, which surpasses the value of most car companies it sells vehicles from — has quietly started purchasing new vehicle franchises without disclosing its future plans.
“There’s a lot of money that wants to come to the industry,” Brian Gordon, president of dealer advisor and broker Dave Cantin Group, told CNBC. “And, generally, the industry is sort of aligned on how to value these things. That makes for a good climate for [mergers and acquisitions].”
Industry consolidation
Multibillion-dollar dealerships have been on the rise amid a decadeslong consolidation that has led to a grow-or-die mentality for many U.S. automotive retailers.
NADA, a trade association representing franchised dealers, reports the average dealership owner has between two and three stores, but the largest growth area over the past decade has been in medium-sized dealerships that own between six and 25 stores.
NADA reports 90.5% of its nearly 17,000 dealers own between one and five stores, down from 94.4% in 2016. Meanwhile, 0.2% of dealers own 50 stores or more, up from 0.1% during that time frame.
“It’s clear that it’s a consolidating industry, and it’s an industry that is going to continue to consolidate,” Gordon said. But, he added, that is happening at every level, especially the expansion of mom-and-pop shops to larger players.
Dave Cantin Group — the advisor for Matthews Auto Group, the dealer group that acquired Sylvester Chevrolet — conducts dozens of such deals a year and said it expects the pace of consolidation and mergers and acquisitions to continue to increase this year.
Matthews Auto Group is one of many regional dealership companies that has decided to expand. The family-owned company started in Vestal — in central New York, south of Syracuse — in 1973 with a single Chrysler-Plymouth store that has grown into a roughly $800 million business with 18 locations and 800 employees.
Rob Matthews, a second-generation owner and CEO of Matthews Auto Group, said the company’s decision to grow is ongoing and that it aims to be more profitable and better compete in its current markets of New York and Pennsylvania.
Matthews Auto Group CFO John Totolis (from left to right), Dave Cantin Group managing director Talon Fee, Sylvester Chevrolet President Derek Sylvester, partner Sylvester Chevrolet Neil Sylvester, Matthews Auto Group CEO Rob Matthews and Matthews Auto Group President Mark Gaeta outside Sylvester Chevrolet in Peckville, Pennsylvania
Courtesy image
“I think that’s certainly a competitive advantage. I think staying still is probably not the best play. You’re seeing continued scale,” Matthews said. “The trend is you’re just going to continue to see consolidation to allow you to stay competitive.”
That’s also why Sylvester said he wanted to sell his business, with stipulations about retaining the store’s dozens of employees — something that’s part of Matthews’ strategy when acquiring a store.
“There’s a lot of things that, because of our scale, we see we can really unlock a store like his,” Matthews said. “I think, honestly, it’s exciting in the sense that we’re just looking to give them more tools and hopefully let everyone work going forward.”
Growth of mega-dealers
Wall Street has taken notice of how lucrative and protected franchised dealerships are in the U.S. The franchised dealer system, which exists to sell new vehicles to consumers rather than automakers selling their vehicles themselves, is unique and heavily regulated.
“I think there’s endless upside. The opportunity for growth in our company is just endless,” Sonic Automotive President Jeff Dyke told CNBC during a recent interview. “I think having mom-and-pop dealers is really good for the business. The thing is, the mom-and-pop dealer is going to have to advance their thinking.”
Sonic Automotive, a publicly traded company with a market cap of more than $2 billion, has grown from 96 franchised dealership stores in 2015 to 134 to end last year. It’s also gone through a massive expansion of its EchoPark used vehicle stores and Sonic Powersports. The company’s revenue during that time jumped 58% to $15.2 billion last year.
Dealership stocks
Others, such as Lithia Motors, have been even more aggressive in growth. The Medford, Oregon-based company surpassed longstanding dealership group AutoNation to become the top U.S. new vehicle franchised dealer in 2022.
Lithia, with a $6.3 billion market cap, has executed an audacious growth plan, from $8.7 billion in revenue in 2016 to $37.6 billion last year. The company nearly tripled its new and used stores from 154 locations to 455 stores during that time frame.
John Murphy, a longtime automotive analyst who is a managing director of strategic advisory at buy-sell advisory firm Haig Partners, said he believes that dealerships remain an extremely lucrative market for investors, despite things settling down somewhat after companies saw inflated profits during the Covid pandemic.
“Structurally, there’s some real potential upside, and there is an increasing level of attention by existing capital in the dealership community as it stands right now from outside players, private equity family offices, other pools of capital on this limited number of dealers and finite number of dealers,” he said. “The earnings upside is increasing and there’s increasing attention, or demand, on the buy side of the equation.”
Mom-and-pops remain
All of that combines to make many mom-and-pop dealerships ripe for acquisition or expansion.
“There’s just so many factors that make competition for a small mom-and-pop dealership more difficult,” said Talon Fee, a managing director at Dave Cantin Group who led the sale of Sylvester Chevrolet to Matthews Auto Group. “It’s not to say that small mom-and-pop dealerships can’t continue to exist and thrive and survive, but they do need to have a plan.”
Fee and others said the top reasons for owners to sell are a lack of succession planning, a growing competitive and changing industry, and a lack of commitment to reinvest in the businesses.
“There’s a lot of outside capital that’s figured out how to come in, given the fact that you have to be an operator in order to get approved by a manufacturer,” said Gordon, of Dave Cantin Group.
But the industry is changing in other ways, as new automakers such as Tesla, Rivian and Lucid try to bypass the franchised dealer model and sell vehicles directly to consumers.
Such companies have continuously fought state laws to allow such sales, with Rivian recently winning a battle with car dealers in Washington state by threatening to take its case to voters with a ballot measure to permit direct sales.
It adds to the evolving U.S. automotive retail landscape that owners such as Sylvester and his wife, who also worked at the dealership, haven’t had to deal with in the past. It’s also something Sylvester and many other smaller mom-and-pop stores won’t have to compete with once they sell their businesses.
“I lived a great life, don’t get me wrong. But, hey, good things come to an end,” said Sylvester, who plans to spend retirement caring for a 92-acre farm in Pennsylvania. “We made a good living. You know, we helped the community out.”
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