The CEO of Canon has said he believes the digital camera market could shrink by half over the next two years, and Canon will focus on its corporate customers in order to adapt.
In a frank interview with Nikkei, Canon CEO Fujio Mitarai said that Canon will shift the focus of its imaging business from consumer retail to corporate sales in order to weather the change in the marketplace.
By corporate sales, Canon will focus on surveillance, industrial and medical imaging needs.
Mitarai says he believes Canon will still sell around 5-6 million prosumer and professional cameras once the digital camera market decline bottoms out.
In the wide-ranging interview he says that Canon (and Nikon) waited so long to enter the full-frame mirrorless market because mirrorless cameras aren’t adding to the market; rather, they are replacing DSLR sales.
As Canon Rumors points out, with a market still in decline, Mitarai is likely telling us that Canon is in no hurry to rush new EOS R models to the marketplace.