Canon: Manufacturing in China to cut costs, boost market share!
By
Mike Tomkins
(Thursday, May 30, 2002 - 00:40 EDT)
Japanese industry heavyweight is planning to dominate the digital camera market within two years...
An interesting Reuters news article on the Yahoo! website reveals that Canon Inc. is planning to begin manufacturing digital cameras in China later this year or early in 2003 in an effort to cut costs. The company currently has digital camera products being manufactured in Japan and Malaysia, the latter plant producing a volume of 100,000 units a month - and is looking to almost double camera production this year as compared to the 2.4 million cameras it shipped in 2001.
No target production figures for the new Chinese facility have yet been announced. Canon is the latest in a succession of companies looking to China's potential cost savings in an attempt to boost sales and profits in a market where steady development means that a return on investment must be made in only a year or two before a product is updated or replaced with a newer model... Olympus, Fuji and others already have manufacturing capabilities in China, and Canon will apparently join these ranks by converting an existing facility manufacturing film cameras to make digital models instead.
Canon has big plans for its digital business, expecting to achieve a 20% market share this year, and company president Fujio Mitarai aiming for the company to lead the global market by 2004. The company currently manufactures 30% of its digital cameras outside of Japan, and plans to increase this figure to 40% of all units manufactured. By 2003, this is expected to be a whopping 6 million units - of which 2.4 million would be manufactured in facilities outside Japan.
Source:
Yahoo! News / Reuters
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