All I know is that if I had 100 shares at $20/ea. ($2,000) in 1998 and never bought another share, that a 5 for 1 split made my same shares worth $10,000 today (if today's price is $20). That's quite different than saying my 100 shares (now 500 shares thanks to the split) is still worth what they were back in 1998. Not true.
Other than that, I have no idea what Canon's strategy is and probably nobody here does either. You made it sound as though the stock has not grown in 20 years. That is patently false. The splits tell a different story.
Other than that fact, I don't care. There was an additional 3 for 2 split in that time frame. So now I would have 750 shares spawned from my original 100 shares. That makes the value of my original 100 shares, had there never been a split, $15,000 ($150 each, not $20). All the chart shows is a $x share price for the day, but if my shares have multiplied thanks to splits... that makes a huge difference.
Saying the share price is the same now as twenty years ago and has not grown is not the whole story. Now, we are done.