Fujifilm has been encouraged by the Japanese government to ‘help’ Nikon by purchasing a stake in the company, according to reports in Japanese media.
A popular Japanese blog has stated that the Japanese government is directly involved in trying to find a company that can partner with Nikon to help the struggling camera manufacturer.
What’s more, the website, Hatena Blog, claims that Fujifilm is one of a handful of companies that is being asked to buy a stake in Nikon to help salvage it.
Earlier this year Nikon reported heavy losses and a major restructure of its camera division, which involved laying off up to 10% of its staff in Japan. Nikon has also seen a loss of marketshare to Sony in the United States.
Nothing official has been stated by any parties as yet, so for now we can only take this as what it is: a rumour. We’ll update this post as we learn more.
Via FujiRumors
UPDATE 1
Nikon Rumors has weighed in with some more insight that effectively pours some cold water over this story from Hatena Blog. Nikon Rumors says a number of its readers have got in touch to point out that the Google Translation is of poor quality. Also, it states that the hatenablog domain is Japan’s equivalent of blogger.com.
UPDATE 2
Mirrorless Rumors has responded to the Nikon Rumors post to state the source of the rumours is in fact a prestigious magazine in Japan called Sentaku. Sentaku has written an article claiming that the Japanese government has put a Fuji-Nikon partnership on the table to see if such an arrangement could work.