Canon Blames Smartphones Selfies As Profit Slips And Sales drop 4.5%

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Canon Blames Smartphones Selfies As  Profit Slips  And Sales drop 4.5%
Canon vows to hone on high-end camera market after earnings, sales drop due to smartphones.
BY Robert Dominguez

The world’s largest camera maker said its net profit for the quarter that ended Sept. 30 fell 1% while imaging system sales, which include digital cameras, plunged more than 9%. ‘We will sell cameras that can provide quality that smartphones cannot give,’ CFO Toshizo Tanaka said.

Smartphone selfies have been giving Canon little to smile about.

The world’s largest camera maker said Monday its net profit for the quarter that ended Sept. 30 fell 1% while its imaging system sales that include digital cameras dropped more than 9%, as a growing number of consumers turn to their smartphones for everyday picture-taking.

Global demand for digital cameras has plunged by nearly one-third, or 32%, from January through August compared to the same period last year, according to industry group Camera & Imaging Products Association, or CIPA, a Tokyo-based industry group.

The decrease dovetails with growing sales of more sophisticated smartphones that usually come equipped with simple-to-use cameras that rival most point-and-shoots made by the likes of Canon and Nikon.

CIPA data showed that 121 million digital cameras were shipped in 2010, a number that combined models with built-in lenses and more expensive ones with interchangeable lenses. By 2013, global shipments were down to 63 million.

luanateutzi/Getty Images/iStockphoto Smartphones are good enough for casual, everyday picture-takers and selfie-snappers — bad news for Canon and other camera makers.

Though not a pretty picture, the high-end digital camera market did grow in that time, rising to 17 million cameras shipped last year from just under 13 million in 2010.

Canon, known for its popular EOS line that ranges from $500 to more than $5,000, said it would focus on the high-end camera market of more serious photographers.

“We aren’t planning to compete face-to-face with smartphones,” Canon CFO Toshizo Tanaka said. “Instead, we will sell cameras that can provide quality that smartphones cannot give.”

Despite the drop in demand for its flagship product, Canon raised its forecasts for full-year net income and operating profit on stronger sales of its printers and other office equipment and a weak yen.

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October 28, 2014 at 10:36 AM