Canon Inc. releases Q2 2023 financials

[Canon Rumors Guy]

Canon Inc. has released Q2 2023 financials along with first half of 2023 performance. It looks like things are going well for Canon as they have seen double digit sales growth for cameras and lenses. There aren’t really any juicy tidbits of information in the presentation material, but here is a breakdown of Canon’s thoughts

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[neuroanatomist]

Continued market domination…business as usual.

 

[Maximilian]

Canon is doom...inant!

Jokes aside. I get a little bit afraid, that the competition continues not to gain some ground.
I prefer competition to monopolism.
Maybe I'll have to jump ship

 

[JohnC]

Stock is up over 18% over the past 16 months or so. Really good performance for a stock of its type.

 

[John Wilde]

I see not allowing third-party RF lenses is really hurting Canon. Oh, wait...

 

[Del Paso]

These sales figures are rigged.
Sony is number one.
No discussion allowed!

 

[neuroanatomist]

These sales figures are rigged.
Sony is number one.
No discussion allowed!

Yes, Sony was number one. On Tuesday. In Liechtenstein.

 

[melgross]

Despite what some people say, Canon knows what it’s doing. Otherwise, sales wouldn’t be strong. These days, double digit growth in this industry is pretty good.

 

[neuroanatomist]

I see not allowing third-party RF lenses is really hurting Canon. Oh, wait...

Yeah. As usual, Canon knows more about making and selling cameras and lenses than the armchair experts making predictions of d00m on the interwebs.

 

[Del Paso]

Didn't I read somewhere that Canon's refusal to license to 3rd party lensmakers would harm them dramatically?

 

[neuroanatomist]

Huh I always thought Sony was still leading the mirrorless game, given their early start

The most recent year for which we have global MILC sales data is 2021, and Canon was just a couple of percentage points behind Sony in market share. We do have data from Japan for 2022, and last year Canon surpassed Sony to take over as the #1-selling MILC brand in Japan. That means they probably surpassed Sony for global MILC sales in 2022 as well, those numbers are expected in November 2023.

 

[melgross]

Huh I always thought Sony was still leading the mirrorless game, given their early start

It’s been several years now that they’ve had competition from Canon and Nikon. It’s expected that they would lose market share. Canon, being the biggest should be expected to take a large amount of that. Nikon, as the smallest, would be expected to take the smallest share. A lot of the people buying are just moving on from cameras from their brands. Sony was never close to being the biggest, overall, and so it’s expected that they won’t remain the biggest in mirrorless either. They were nonexistent in DSLRs, which is why they turned to mirrorless where at first, they were pretty much the only major brand.

 

[koenkooi]

Huh I always thought Sony was still leading the mirrorless game, given their early start

You probably mean "fullframe mirrorless", the EOS M line has been best selling overall camera for years until very recently.

 

[blackcoffee17]

\"we released the EOS R100 in June. This product is the smallest and
lightest in the series, and it is a model that users can easily enjoy full-fledged image
capturing, which will encourage people to step up from smartphones\"

How do you encourage smartphone users to buy this camera when you remove the touchscreen?

 

[John Wilde]

How do you encourage smartphone users to buy this camera when you remove the touchscreen?

Yes, the lack of a touchscreen on the R100 is a very strange decision. Even the M100/M200 had a touchscreen. The R50 sounds like a nice improvement of the M50 though.

 

[David - Sydney]

I just picked up a local RP as backup/secondary body for an upcoming astro landscape workshop.
After 15% discount, AUD150 Canon Australia cash back rebate and getting 10% GST back via TRS, the end cost is ~USD800 (apples to apples) with a 5 year warranty. Second hand prices are running at almost this cost so it was a no-brainer.

All the Canon bodies prices were all significantly reduced recently which is unusual as it doesn't correspond to normal annual marketing discounts cycles.
Maybe they were clearing out local stock but the RP was a bargain. I can't imagine that Canon was losing money on local sales. Exchange rates are about the same as 1 year ago (albeit with some volatility during the last year) so that doesn't account for it.

 

[David - Sydney]

"In the Imaging Business Unit, as for the interchangeable-lens digital cameras, unit sales increased due to steady sales of the EOS R6 Mark II full-frame mirrorless camera, EOS R7 and EOS R10 APS-C size mirrorless cameras released last year. The new entry-level EOS R50 and EOS R100 models, launched this year, were also well-received in the market. The market demand for some models even surpassed production capacity. Unit sales of lenses surpassed those of the same period of the previous year thanks to strong sales of RF-series interchangeable-lenses."

Double digit growth is massive in almost static market (+1% YoY) so the big question is which competitor(s) is dropping market share but ultimately it is about profit per model. I can only imagine that sales revenue and profitability will increase if Canon can remove their supply chain issues

The JPY has depreciated ~15% against the EUR but the Canon Europe pricing still remains high so there should be great profitability in that region

Imaging inventory value levels are up ~35% and increase of 20% in days of inventory for 1H YoY. That shows just how much supply chain issues for some items are impacting sales.

Imaging sales is up 15% and operating profit by 57% 2Q22 to 2Q23
Full year projection is higher than previously forecast with sales up by 14% and operating profit by 20%!!
They don't split out operating profit by camera vs industrial but sales is up 12% both for 1H and full YoY projection

The lithography equipment is also interesting with 195 units forecast for the full year => average value USD8.3m each.
Compare that to ASML with 50% gross profit and full year sales growth of 30% including higher demand from China even though export regulations restrict Chinese sales to older technology. Unit sales of ~500 in 2022. Highest price for latest gen tech is USD200m/machine but this could be list price that no one buys at.