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According to Nikkei Asia, Canon is considering outsourcing some of its operations to other Asian countries.
Interestingly, it seems from the interview that we haven't seen any compacts because Canon closed down the factory in Zhuhai, China, which was responsible for them, and now there's nothing.
With the camera market favoring high-end products such as mirrorless models, Canon in 2022 shuttered a factory in Zhuhai, China, that had made compact digital cameras.
With the noted increase in compact camera sales, I'm curious if part of this new outsourcing is to create cheaper cameras, such as compacts, again. They imply that is the case, but it could also mean cheaper interchangeable lens cameras.
We want to go fabless with the printers and lower-end digital cameras we manufacture in Asia.
As noted by Nikkei, Canon's plans include positioning the production facilities in Japan as “mother factories” where manufacturing technology for flagship products gets established, and Canon would focus on cutting costs through automation and shifting to supplying its production equipment.
Nikki also mentions that Canon hopes to avoid supply chain disruptions and geopolitical risks. With a potential upcoming trade war between the United States and China, it stands to reason that Japan wants nothing of that and needs to move cheaper camera production to another Asian country that has high-tech manufacturing and a cheaper workforce than Japan.
With the industry shifting and shipping more compacts than in 2023, it sounds like Canon is making a move to supply some smaller / cheaper cameras to the marketplace, but to set up a new factory from scratch in another country will most likely take time.
Canon also has assembly production in Taiwan, and I believe it still has facilities in Vietnam and Malaysia.
You can read the entire article here; it is paywalled and requires a login.
Source: Nikkei
Image Source: Canon Nagasaki
A factory that can make a camera for Canon can also make a camera for Sony or Pentax or .. anyone. Since factories are expensive and that you need to keep the machinery busy to make it worthwhile, why own that cost?
This might also be driven by Canon seeing a continued gradual downward trend of camera sales to a point where it won't be profitable to have your own factory.
I read the story on compact cameras ... my suspicion is that has all of the permanency of a 16 yo's boyfriend/girlfriend (just another fad). Nobody I know talks about buying any sort of dedicated camera and I'm not seeing compacts in tourist crowds, just phones. But time will tell. The problem with compacts is you can't tiktok/ig the thing you just captured. If someone makes pairing a compact camera with a smart phone behave like just another phone camera, could be a different story (killer feature.)
Canon have said they want to go fab-less, so reports your story. That doesn't mean they see a drop in sales, rather it sounds like they want to pivot to be more like AMD/Apple. If they move their imaging and other production activity into wholely owned subsidaries, that sets them up to protect the part of the company that generates the value (IP) from the factory side of things. It might be a sign that Canon wants to do more different things, too. Iti could also be Canon hedging bets on the ability of the "next gen" phone-cameras with AI, that might take a chunk out of dedicated camera sales.
That's not really true. Granted, a significant amount of growth is being made by one country right now, but it's highly unlikely their economy will change that drastically soon.
I mean, heck, I literally just wrote about this yesterday...
CIPA November 2024: The Rise of the Compact
I wouldn't be surprised if they use one of the Chinese compact manufacturers and convince them to move assembly operations to Vietnam, etc.
which that manufacturer may be thinking of doing now anyways.
that manufacturer then makes compact cameras for the canon brand using canon specifications and maybe sensors and canon supplied firmware.
(totally spitballing here)
Ooof, I didn't read that story yet. What that story doesn't have is a graph so longer term trends are visible. This is the graph your story was missing and it puts into perspective what the "9%" really means. October 2024 is highest sales since Jan 2022, but October was also the peak of sales in 2022 too.
Yup, I'm with you there. Apple has moved some of its manufacturing from China to India, so yeah, world is diversifying away from "China is the world's factory" and this might just be part of that movement.
in 10 out of 11 months, net units were higher in 2024 than they were in 2023.
I'm not sure I see your point.
shipments are NOT declining year on year, it's always normal for shipments to peak in October, as that's when the bulk of things gets shipped from Japan for the November and December sales period.
I don't see people walking around much with laptops either unless in coffee shops etc. Not things many people care to do in these modern times on the street. Flaunt electronics on busy streets with ones eyeball pasted to an EVF. My travel camera is never carried in plain sight. I rarely pull out my expensive smart phone walking on the street either when traveling. It could get snatched right from my hands. As many do. Only in airports, restaurants etc will I start peeping my phone when traveling.
that's why i want a small camera, so i don't look like a really old boomer any more than I do naturally.
A company having 3rd parties manufacture low-end products for them while using their own factories to make top-shelf gear is not going fabless.
But as I said…you prefer your alternate reality where you know what you know.
This is a huge point. The pandemic taught a lot of companies that it is a bad choice to have all your manufacturing eggs in one basket and many companies are diversifying production as a result. Some big retailers like Costco are now looking at the robustness of supply and manufacturing when considering new suppliers. Without reading too much into it, this is a smart move for Canon.
Thing about canon though...I'd expect even cheaper (made) products coming, especially after the mostly cheapo slow stinker lenses for APSC, trash like the r100, and their recent cheaper, smaller than image circle FF optics lenses with no IS, hiding dramatic distortion, slap an L badge on it with 1400.00 price point nonsense.