Specifically, the 1,550 employees of Japanese companies will be redeployed, including 200 in the group headquarters, 1,000 in the semiconductor lithography business, and 350 in the imaging product business. At the same time, Nikon announced a voluntary retirement plan for about 1,000 employees, which is equivalent to 10% of the total number of its domestic employees. If it goes smoothly, by March 31, 2017, the total number will decrease by 1,000.
An electronic product analyst in Taiwan, China, pointed out to reporters that in recent years, there has been a declining trend in card machines, and related products have rarely been seen at large-scale electronic exhibitions such as CES. At present, camera manufacturers basically only have professional-grade camera markets, and their research institutes Digital cameras are no longer focused as a dedicated unit.
Market was taken away by smart phone
According to the Nikon Financial Report, as of fiscal year 2016, in fiscal year 2016, apart from the overall online sales growth of 20%, the sales of digital imaging business as the main body decreased by 11%, while the operating income segment decreased by 19%.
In the announcement, Nikon lowered its company’s full-year sales forecast for March 2017 to 800 billion yen (US$766 million), a decrease of 20 billion yen (approximately US$190 million) from August’s forecast.
According to statistics from the Japan International Association of Cameras and Imaging Equipment Industry, global digital camera sales peaked in 2010 and then began to decline year after year. In 2014, the overall sales volume of the digital camera market was even slightly below the level of 2000, before 2016. Monthly sales for six months are almost half of those in 2014.
Behind the camera business is increasingly difficult to do, is a smart phone.
In September 2000, Sharp released the first Sharp J-SH04 mobile phone with a built-in 110,000-pixel CCD camera. Smartphone manufacturers have never stopped providing mobile phones with better camera and advanced imaging technology. At the smartphone conference where smartphone CEOs talk about parameters, the camera function will be displayed as a key link: continuously improving the camera technology, faster and faster focusing speed, imitating the human eyes, optical image stabilization, and many different Shooting modes and so on.
Photographing has also become one of the focuses of the current mobile phone manufacturer's differentiated competition, and each mobile phone manufacturer has made a great deal of effort. OPPO's newest flagship OPPOR9s produced a "This moment, clearer" advertisement to replace the virus-like "charge for five minutes, call two hours," and said that photography will be the next core. Vivo on the upcoming X9/X9 Plus is equipped with dual cameras and soft lights on the front camera, and the other major mobile phone brand Mito occupies more than 95% of the company's revenue.
China Mobile's China Union Secretary-General Lao Chen pointed out to reporters that there are few mobile phone industry innovations that are currently homogenized, and as a result of just taking pictures, the technology has not yet reached the top.
He pointed out that the introduction of dual cameras in the past two years is a major trend in the development of mobile phone technology. The dual camera that can greatly enhance the mobile phone camera experience has become the standard configuration of the flagship mobile phone. It can be seen that Huawei P9, Xiaomi 5sPlus and iPhone 7 Plus are all equipped with dual camera versions.
Data show that in 2017 China's smart phone shipments will be about 700 million units, of which the double-shot penetration will reach 30%, and the dual camera penetration rate in the flagship will reach 70%.
On the other hand, it can also be seen that the cooperation between established camera manufacturers and mobile phone brands is not new. From the cooperation between Carl Zeiss and Nokia, they provided certified lenses. Huawei and Leica jointly launched Huawei's first dual-camera mobile phone and Hasselblad's custom-built optical zoom camera module for the Moto Z. This year, mobile phone manufacturers have also made breakthroughs. Innovation bottlenecks.
Is the combination of camera and VR the way out?
As the largest semiconductor lithography system manufacturer in the world, Nikon has lost to Dutch rival ASML in the market competition in recent years, and its share has been lost. According to Japanese media reports, Nikon’s major profit growth this fiscal year comes from liquid crystal displays and organic light-emitting diode display (OLED) manufacturing equipment sold to the Chinese market.
In addition to Nikon, Canon, Fujifilm, Sony and other major video giants are also very difficult. Fuji Photo Products' revenue for the first quarter fell by 11.5% year-on-year, operating profit decreased by 28.5% year-on-year, Canon Group's revenue for the imaging business decreased by 13.5% in the second quarter of 2016, and Sony's revenue for the previous quarter was 1,688.9 billion yen. In the same period last year, it fell by 10.8%, and operating profit fell by 48% year-on-year.
Distressed video vendors are also exploring the transition. Last year, Nikon acquired Optos, a UK manufacturer of retinal imaging diagnostic instruments, and plans to integrate its own image processing technology with Optos' products and technologies to develop high-precision diagnostic equipment. New products introduced this year can also be seen, in addition to SLR camera updates, Nikon is trying to enter the field of panoramic VR, extreme sports camera.
Sony, on the other hand, increased its operational efficiency and market response speed through continuous restructuring. After splitting the TV, semiconductor, and imaging divisions independently, in October, B2B’s battery business will be transferred to Murata. Its medium-term plan for fiscal year 2015 to 2017 mentioned that the components business, gaming and network services business, film and television and music business, and financial business are key businesses in the future.
The above electronics analysts believe that in the face of the overall decline in demand and the decline in profits, there are indeed many uncertainties in the future of the imaging industry, but Nikon will not be overwhelmed in a short time, after all, its accumulation in optical technology. To make it competitive in high-end photographic equipment, as a bond with the consumer image business also shoulders the mission of maintaining brand value.
This may win time for Nikon's transformation. The above analysts said that the choice of business transformation in the future is very important. At present, it can be seen that the optical giants have entered the VR market through panoramic cameras. There are also explorations in the medical market, monitoring the market, etc., but the field of development is still quite limited.
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