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Konica Minolta adjusts focus and cuts 3,700 jobs
TOKYO — Konica Minolta
Holdings said last week that it will pull out of its money-losing
camera business and will sell part of a plant, development knowledge
and other assets for digital cameras to Sony.
The company will focus on technologies that don’t cater directly to
consumers, including optics, copiers, medical equipment and device
parts used for displays.
Terms of the agreement with Sony were not disclosed. The Japanese
equipment maker and Sony have developed single-lens-reflex digital
cameras together since last July.
Tokyo-based Konica Minolta will cut 3,700 jobs, or 11 percent of its
global work force of 33,000, including early retirement by Sept. 30,
2007, the company said. The company provided no regional breakdown,
spokeswoman Yuko Ogiso said.
The company said the global camera and photo business has been rapidly
dwindling, making it difficult to make profits in those operations.
Thursday’s decisions are part of the company’s reform efforts that
began last year.
It was the second time in as many weeks that a major Japanese camera
maker announced a major change in strategy. Earlier this month, Nikon,
which helped popularize the 35mm camera five decades ago, said it will
stop making most of its film cameras to concentrate on digital models.
Nikon said it wanted to focus on “business categories that continue to
demonstrate the strongest growth” as film cameras sales keep shrinking.
It also will stop making most of its manual-focus lenses.
Most of the company’s autofocus lenses work with manual-focus bodies,
however. Also, German optical company Carl Zeiss is widely reported to
be planning a line of manual-focus lenses for Nikon bodies.
Nikon did not give firm dates for the discontinuation of its products, but said that sales will cease as supplies are depleted.
Major competitor Canon still makes five models of single-lens reflex
film cameras. At the lower end of the market, Eastman Kodak announced
in 2004 that it would stop selling film cameras in the United States
and Europe.
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