Canon releases an interim financial report

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Canon has decided to release an interim financial report for the time period of January 1, 2019 – June 30, 2019 for the following reason.
We are pleased to provide this overview of the first half (from January 1, 2019 to June 30, 2019) of our 119th Business Term.
The world economy in the first half of this term saw a slowdown in growth as a whole due to a deceleration in European economy and the effect of the lingering U.S.-China trade friction.
Under such conditions, corporate demand for office multifunction devices and laser printers stagnated, while the markets for digital cameras and inkjet printers continued to shrink. As a result, both Office Business Unit and Imaging System Business Unit experienced a decrease in sales. Sales of the Medical System Business Unit, which delivered strong sales results for computed tomography (CT) systems and other products in the Americas, increased. On the other hand, sales of the Industry and Others Business Unit, which includes semiconductor...

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Jul 21, 2010
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These are beginning to feel ominous.
Broadly speaking, consumer goods are suffering. Comparatively, it could be worse for Canon. As I posted elsewhere, from their most recent financial presentations, for their respective ‘imaging’ divisions, Sony dropped by 15%, Nikon dropped by 12%, Fuji dropped by 15%, and Olympus dropped by 25%.
 
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knight427

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Public companies (those you can buy stock in...roughly speaking) are required to file regular reports to disclose information to investors. While I don't understand the requirements for all of the stock exchanges, generally speaking they are required to file quarterly reports.

Sony certainly files the same number of reports, but their camera division is proportionally way smaller in relation to the overall size of Sony. Their reports have to cover a much broader cross section of industries, so there will be less detail for those more interested in cameras than in corporate profits.
 
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Canon should close 90% of their camera factories and only sell the M50. To become stronger they have to learn from Sony's success and release a new M50 every 6 months. To become more hip with all those influencers and content creators Canon should fly all loyal Canon using Youtubers on an island for a week, so they can test all those juicy Canon cameras and lenses. The first meeting should be called Cantdo Trip 1.0 but Canon will drop the idea of 2.0 after they realized that they basically only invited Peter McKinnon and let him alone with no food and water for one week on a lonely island. Poor guy.
 
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Canon should close 90% of their camera factories and only sell the M50. To become stronger they have to learn from Sony's success and release a new M50 every 6 months. To become more hip with all those influencers and content creators Canon should fly all loyal Canon using Youtubers on an island for a week, so they can test all those juicy Canon cameras and lenses. The first meeting should be called Cantdo Trip 1.0 but Canon will drop the idea of 2.0 after they realized that they basically only invited Peter McKinnon and let him alone with no food and water for one week on a lonely island. Poor guy.

Yeah .. .brilliant idea.

Bet you'd get a pink slip for that blurb if you ever worked for Canon.

Canon actually bit a near a 25% chunk out of Sony's full frame camera sales in Japan last year, so I doubt any of their management are foolish enough to entertain pipe dreams. Effective managers don't knee-jerk decisions by just single year changes.
 
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Yeah .. .brilliant idea.

Bet you'd get a pink slip for that blurb if you ever worked for Canon.

Canon actually bit a near a 25% chunk out of Sony's full frame camera sales in Japan last year, so I doubt any of their management are foolish enough to entertain pipe dreams. Effective managers don't knee-jerk decisions by just single year changes.

Another way to look at it is that Sony took a 40% (or whatever) chunk of Canon's FF camera sales. Canon's share of the MILC market has come not at Sony's expense, but at the expense of DSLRs (mostly their own), sales of which are plummeting.
 
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's really hard to compare apples to apples in terms of sales performance between any camera companies because they all tend to divide their multiple business units in different ways. All of these companies have an obligation to keep their shareholders up to date on progress, but they will all certainly attempt to present financials in a responsible way which still maintains confidence in the company.

I think the first line in this article does make it sound like this report is a knee jerk reaction to a critical problem (emphasis mine) - "Canon has decided to release an interim financial report for the time period of January 1, 2019 – June 30, 2019 for the following reason:". Did Canon actually say it was released for this reason or was that added?
 
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A 50% reduction in profit on a 10% reduction in sales is what you get when you focus too much of your business plan on moving low cost/low margin products. I'd say the pricing for the EF-R lenses that Canon has been rolling out are an indication that Canon understands it needs to move volume up-market to stay financially viable. I'd expect prices to move higher from here as camera sales revert back to pre digital-boom levels. Probably a few more years of pain ahead for the big players though.
 
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LukasS

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A 50% reduction in profit on a 10% reduction in sales is what you get when you focus too much of your business plan on moving low cost/low margin products. I'd say the pricing for the EF-R lenses that Canon has been rolling out are an indication that Canon understands it needs to move volume up-market to stay financially viable. I'd expect prices to move higher from here as camera sales revert back to pre digital-boom levels. Probably a few more years of pain ahead for the big players though.

I would guess that as well. Changes in the market will require from them to scale back production and raise margins - but they can only do that (and survive) in high end parts. Don't see how innovation can here help them too much (in expanding demand), as overall demand shrinks and market is saturated.
 
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oh boy, once again all the genius financial analysts instead of printing money they ll waste their valuable time to tell us here in canonrumors.com what Canon should do or what they did wrong or how lucky they are for this and that..pathetic losers!!!!
We can't all make insightful posts like yours but I'll try harder in the future. Thanks for sharing.
 
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Mar 25, 2011
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A 50% reduction in profit on a 10% reduction in sales is what you get when you focus too much of your business plan on moving low cost/low margin products. I'd say the pricing for the EF-R lenses that Canon has been rolling out are an indication that Canon understands it needs to move volume up-market to stay financially viable. I'd expect prices to move higher from here as camera sales revert back to pre digital-boom levels. Probably a few more years of pain ahead for the big players though.
Under such conditions, corporate demand for office multifunction devices and laser printers stagnated, while the markets for digital cameras and inkjet printers continued to shrink. As a result, both Office Business Unit and Imaging System Business Unit experienced a decrease in sales. Sales of the Medical System Business Unit, which delivered strong sales results for computed tomography (CT) systems and other products in the Americas, increased. On the other hand, sales of the Industry and Others Business Unit, which includes semiconductor lithography equipment, decreased as customers continued to adjust their capital investment.

The issue is not so much Cameras, but the really big dollar corporate accounts which involve very large transactions. Its a offshoot of the financial uncertainty in the world market. Corporations are just waiting to see what is going to happen with tarriffs and trade balances.

If it continues this way, we are all going to be severely impacted.
 
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Ozarker

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$25.50 a share on the NYSE puts them back to where they were 20 years ago without a lot of support. They're lucky they trade mainly on the NIKKEI and that the Japanese markets are more forgiving than the US. If they were a US company the shorts would be crushing them.
Are you factoring in stock splits over that time period? :unsure:
 
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YuengLinger

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On the photography side of things, this is evidence of market saturation. There are only so many humans who have the time, money, and interest to get so deeply into photography that they want the kinds of equipment that make for solid profits.

I believe smartphones don't just replace better cameras, I believe screen-time affects so much of our lives that people are engaging less with the world. Fewer kids involved in sports, fewer new members in all kinds of clubs, from bowling leagues to camera clubs, to churches. Those who stay in more tend to take less photos or see any need for something more than a smartphone to capture "moments" with family/friends.

Another factor which might be negligible or not: Street photography ain't what it used to be. It seems to me, from personal experience and news stories and anecdotes told by friends who travel, in general, people on the street are much less friendly about being photographed. Even at old standby events such as art festivals, renaissance fairs, etc. People love selfies, but hate being photographed by strangers. Does this make sense? So once a photographer finds that one previously accessible, interesting source of subject matter is becoming more difficult and even scary, that's another discouraging factor.

(Also, regarding street photography, so many people are looking at their screens or talking on their phones, getting candid shots of people with interesting expressions is tougher than ever!)

Binge watching series is another culprit...
 
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May 11, 2017
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On the photography side of things, this is evidence of market saturation. There are only so many humans who have the time, money, and interest to get so deeply into photography that they want the kinds of equipment that make for solid profits.

I believe smartphones don't just replace better cameras, I believe screen-time affects so much of our lives that people are engaging less with the world. Fewer kids involved in sports, fewer new members in all kinds of clubs, from bowling leagues to camera clubs, to churches. Those who stay in more tend to take less photos or see any need for something more than a smartphone to capture "moments" with family/friends.

Another factor which might be negligible or not: Street photography ain't what it used to be. It seems to me, from personal experience and news stories and anecdotes told by friends who travel, in general, people on the street are much less friendly about being photographed. Even at old standby events such as art festivals, renaissance fairs, etc. People love selfies, but hate being photographed by strangers. Does this make sense? So once a photographer finds that one previously accessible, interesting source of subject matter is becoming more difficult and even scary, that's another discouraging factor.

(Also, regarding street photography, so many people are looking at their screens or talking on their phones, that getting candid shots of people with interesting expressions is tougher than ever!)

Binge watching series is another culprit...
Another piece of the puzzle may be that it is getting harder and harder to convince people to upgrade because what they already have is so good.
 
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