In a recent interview, Canon executive envisioned the time when camera shipments can drop below 10 million units. Here are a recap of the interview from Digicame-info (Google translated):
- The company's April-June 2020 financial results, announced at the end of July 2020, when Canon fell into the final deficit for the first time in the quarter, posted a net loss of 8.8 billion yen. Canon was known as a synonym for a good company, but its financial results showed its predicament. One of the main reasons for the deficit is the struggle of the office business, and the other is the sluggish sales of cameras, which is Canon's original business.
- With the spread of smartphones, the digital camera market peaked in 2010 and has been steadily shrinking. The market size in 2019 is about one-eighth that of 2010. The new Corona hit it directly.
- "It was a really sharp drop, and sales and purchasing activities stopped, and (sales) were bottoming out." Takeshi Tokura, Managing Executive Officer, General Manager of the Image Communication Business Division, which handles the digital camera business at Canon, recalls. Although Canon did not disclose profit or loss by product, it seems that it was "a large deficit when looking at the digital camera business alone" (industry analyst). However, since July, the number of digital cameras shipped has also entered a gradual recovery trend.
- What plagued Canon, which has long boasted the top share in the digital camera market, was its support for mirrorless cameras represented by Sony's breakthrough. In the ever-shrinking digital camera market, only mirrorless cameras have grown over the last few years. Shipments of the new Corona fell in 2020, but the rate of decline was only 30% less for mirrorless than for SLRs, which were halved (shipments from January to October 2020).
Via Toyokeizai, via Digicame-info
