Japan's Konica Minolta, one of the world's leading photographic equipment makers, said yesterday it would stop making all cameras because the market had become too competitive.
The company plans to slash 3,700 jobs or about 11 percent of its global workforce by next year under a restructuring package that will also see part of its business making high-end digital cameras sold off to Sony.
Konica Minolta will also gradually stop making camera film by next year to focus on its more profitable optics and medical imaging activities.
"In today's era of digital cameras ... it became difficult to provide timely competitive products even with our top optical, mechanical and electronics technologies," the company said in a statement on its Web site.
"For color film and color paper, while considering our customer needs, we will step-by-step reduce product lineup and cease our film production and color paper by the end of fiscal year ending March 31, 2007," it added.
The announcement comes less than a week after Nikon announced plans to stop selling most of its film cameras to focus on hot-selling digital models.
Konica Minolta struggled to adapt to the rapidly changing shift to digital photography and away from traditional film.
It slumped into the red in the first half of the current financial year and forecast a large full-year loss due to falling sales of conventional photo film and intense competition in digital cameras.
The group, formed through the 2003 merger of Konika and Minolta, made a net loss of ¥3.48 billion (US$30.2 million) in the first half to September, reversing a net profit of ¥8.20 billion a year earlier.
TECH EFFECT: While Chiayi County was the oldest region in the nation, Hsinchu county and city, home of the nation’s chip industry, were the youngest, the report showed Seven of the nation’s administrative regions, encompassing 57.2 percent of Taiwan’s townships and villages, became “super-aged societies” in June, the Ministry of the Interior said in its latest report. A region is considered super-aged if 20 percent of the population is aged 65 or older. The ministry report showed that Taiwan had 4,391,744 people aged 65 or older as of June, representing 18.76 percent of the total population and an increase of 1,024,425 people compared with August 2018. In June, the nation’s elderly dependency ratio was 27.3 senior citizens per 100 working-aged people, an increase of 7.39 people over August 2018, it said. That
‘UNITED FRONT’: The married couple allegedly produced talk show videos for platforms such as Facebook and YouTube to influence Taiwan’s politics A husband and wife affiliated with the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) were indicted yesterday for allegedly receiving NT$74 million (US$2.32 million) from China to make radio and digital media propaganda to promote the Chinese government’s political agenda and influence the outcome of Taiwan’s elections. Chang Meng-chung (張孟崇) and his wife, Hung Wen-ting (洪文婷), allegedly received a total of NT$74 million from China between 2021 and last year to promote candidates favored by Beijing, contravening the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法) and election laws, the Chiayi District Prosecutors’ Office said. The couple acted as Beijing’s propaganda mouthpiece by disparaging Hong Kong democracy activists
EARLY ARRIVALS: The first sets of HIMARS purchased from the US arrived ahead of their scheduled delivery, with troops already training on the platforms, a source said The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday said it spotted 35 Chinese military aircraft, including fighters and bombers, flying to the south of Taiwan proper on the way to exercises in the Pacific, a second consecutive day it has reported such activities. The Chinese Ministry of National Defense did not respond to a request for comment on the missions, reported just days before tomorrow’s US presidential election. The US is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. Its arms sales to Taipei include a US$2 billion missile system announced last month. The MND said that from 9am yesterday,
A Control Yuan member yesterday said he would initiate an investigation into why the number of foreign nationals injured or killed in traffic incidents has nearly doubled in the past few years, and whether government agencies’ mechanisms were ineffective in ensuring road safety. Control Yuan member Yeh Ta-hua (葉大華) said in a news release that Taiwan has been described as a “living hell for pedestrians” and traffic safety has become an important national security issue. According to a National Audit Office report released last year, more than 780,000 foreign nationals were legally residing in Taiwan in 2019, which grew to more than