Canon Inc may have a towering presence in traditional film cameras, but it has been cautious in its move into the digital world. A top company executive, however, says it's not too late to shoot for the top.
"We positioned ourselves so we could put out the kind of products expected of the Canon brand just as digital cameras were taking off in the wider market," said Kazuya Hosoe, head of Canon's digital imaging business group, in a recent interview.
Among the keys to success will be a full product lineup, a well-known brand and top technology in key components, he said.
Hosoe, a 31-year veteran of Canon's camera operations, moved to the digital side just in time to oversee its premier product offering in September 1999.
By that time rivals such as Sony Corp, Olympus Optical Co Ltd and Fuji Photo Film Co Ltd had already been in the market for three years or more.
Last year, as Canon was still filling out its digital product line, the global market doubled to 11 million units, but this year industry executives and analysts expect more modest growth of 40 to 50 percent, partly due to the market's bigger base but also reflecting a chill in US spending late last year.
But prices in the so-called "volume zone" for digital cameras, where most products are sold, have moved low enough with high enough resolutions -- or pixel counts -- to attract buyers who want physical prints, not just images to e-mail to relatives.
"If you ask why people use cameras, in the end what they want is a print they can hold in their hand," Hosoe said.
Canon President Fujio Mitarai, in a March meeting with analysts, said digital cameras were one of four areas -- along with ink-jet printers, chip-etching steppers and digital office equipment -- where Canon wants the world's top market share.
Analysts apparently liked what they heard.
Canon's shares rose as much as 25 percent in the subsequent two months to a 10-month high of ?5,180, although they have since pulled back somewhat. On Wednesday afternoon, they were trading at ?4,760, up 0.85 percent on the day.
But in digital cameras at least, Canon has a long way to go.
Although it claims a 25 percent share in the compact film camera market and 40 percent for 35mm single-lens reflex cameras, its share of the digital market last year was under 10 percent.
And while the Japanese camera industry overall earned more revenue last year in digital than in traditional film cameras for the first time ever, Canon this year expects only a quarter of its camera revenues to come from digital, or ?90 billion (US$739.5 million).
Mitarai said technologies that will bolster Canon's position include "bluetooth," which lets cameras, cellphones and other devices exchange data without wires at close distances. Another is ink-jet printing and plans for a camera with a built-in printer.
Canon is cooperating in bluetooth with Sweden's Ericsson, which expects to launch a bluetooth handset by year's end, and Canon has shown prototypes of a bluetooth camera.
But Hosoe said he's still wary of the technology's high costs and speeds are too slow to transmit high-resolution images, implying his company would not rush to match Ericsson's launch.
Also casting doubt on the project was Ericsson's recent decision to form a cellphone joint venture with Sony, now the world's leading digital camera brand, although Hosoe said Canon's collaboration with the Swedish company would not be affected.
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