Woody said:
I think there are 2 serious issues plaquing the Canon system:
a) sensor performance at low ISO
b) slow / inaccurate contrast based AF in their compact cameras e.g., G7X, EOS-M etc
Hopefully Canon can address these 2 problems.
These are just some of the symptoms. The underlying problem is, that Canon has not been willing to drive innovation full speed and/or has not been able to do so. They have switched to iterative small, purely marketing-driven steps. This has resulted in losing their towering technological dominance in digital cameras they had until about 2006, when many pros, semi-pros and enthusiasts bought their initial sets of canon digital slrs plus lenses plus flash. Today canon is an "ok" supplier and they still sell the most dslrs and they may be market leaders, but they are no longer the clear industry leader when it comes to digital imaging per se.
Canon is still an 800 pound gorilla, but it has gotten old, fat, tired, and complacent, unwilling to learn new tricks or to take any risks. They are now the supplier of choice to a) inexperienced brand believers shopping for a rebel plus kit lens (provided they still want to lug around any dslr) and b) professionals/semi pros with a large investment in the system who believe they need or really need cps service. But canon is loosing the most important segment fast: photo enthusiasts with some money to spend. They want the best cameras. Lenses and systems, they can afford. And they are doing their homework and know what those systems are. Unless one is bird/wildlife/outdoor sports oriented and into long tele lenses, it ai t canon these days. And it aint small iterations of clunky mirrorslappers.