70s of last century, the United States Kodak invented the world's first digital camera, but this revolutionary product failed to bring sustainable profits for the company, in 2012 the century-old but fell on the threshold of the digital imaging era In the digital age, the giants in the market are Japan 's Nikon and Canon, most of which can only choose between non - competing businesses, but Nikon has also encountered operational difficulties recently, and may even become a The second Kodak.
A century-old across the era
This year is a memorable year in Nikon history, but the decline in performance has diluted the joy.
In 1917 exactly 100 years ago, the optical measuring instrument division of Tokyo Keiki Co., Ltd. and the mirror division of Iwaki Glass Co., Ltd. were merged into a company called Nihon Optronics Co., Ltd. Then they merged Fujii lens production This laid the foundation for the future development of Nikon.
At the time, Nikon hired eight optical specialists from Germany plus 200 of its own staff to produce telescopes, microscopes and optical measuring instruments, and in the 1930s the company produced photographic lenses and enabled the use of the Nikkor trademark.
After World War II, in 1946, Nikon launched its first paraxial fuselage and went on sale in 1948, the first camera to be named after 'Nikon.' Many reporters later came to the scene to make a report Nikon products are used, the lens clear and sharp, light body sturdy body, making the company fame .Nikon since then released a lot of the classic lens and body, which laid the benchmark in the field of photographic equipment.
In the film era, Nikon has F3 camera carrying tripod for the work, and in the digital transformation of the 90s of last century, compared with the once dominant Kodak, Nikon has also responded quickly.In 1999, Nikon first introduced the price of 6000 The following professional-grade digital SLR camera, once the whole professional digital SLR market outlook changed, not only its price is lower than Kodak products, and the body is more compact.Many news and advertising agencies are Nikon digital camera prices and Attracted by the performance to a large scale began to shift to digital.
With the help of professional cameras, civilian digital cameras have also entered a blow-up period, and Nikon, which introduced several entry-level digital camera products, has also benefited greatly from such "wolf tactics."
Good King no longer cliffs whereabouts
For Nikon, the digital era brought both prosperity and decline, with a steep decline in performance in the past three years, but even more so for corporate managers that the current situation was not the one that came out of the competition 'Products, but the entire camera industry has been hit.
Nikon's position on the top of the brand value charts can most clearly show the decline in recent years.Nikon's 'Nikon' brand value fell 29% to 1.5 billion US dollars, according to Interbrand's 2015 list of Japanese corporate brand value, From No. 10 in the previous year to No. 16. 2016 Nikon's brand value fell 30%, ranking only 21st, and in 2017 fell 4 to 25.
Nikon brand value dropped significantly because of the inability to adapt to changing user needs. The rise of smartphones, the market for small digital cameras is shrinking rapidly. Comparing the dazzling camera capabilities of new Apple products will provide insight into this alternative. According to IDC, the global survey of cameras, a small digital camera that brought billowing profits to Nikon after killing a series of gadgets such as MP3 players, calculators and pedometers, the global camera Shipments totaled 81 million units, just over half the peak in 2010. The main reason for this is the shrinking demand for compact digital cameras that compete with smartphones.
Nikon's financial position dropped cliffs after the company peaked in digital revenue in fiscal 2007 set a record annual profit of 75.4 billion yen, the profit decline year by year to 18.2 billion yen in fiscal 2015, the previous fiscal Year is a loss of 90 billion yen.
To reverse the situation, Nikon announced last year it cut about 1,000 employees in Japan, which is equivalent to 10% of the company's total number of employees in Japan, recently came the news that it is going to shut down a factory in China.In addition to layoffs, Nikon Also cut the product line, last year, Japan's Nikon announced the abolition of the introduction of pricing 100,000 yen (about 6,000 yuan) advanced digital camera 'DL series' of the three models by competition intensified low-cost models, more and more The more difficult to ensure profitability and other factors, the Japanese manufacturers are vigorously develop about 100,000 yen high-end models.Nikon had planned DL series digital cameras as a trump card to improve profits, but found defects before listing.Although later also Has been committed to the development of this series of models, but ultimately hope to abandon the listing due to profitability.
Transformation is not easy way
Nikon's dilemma is a microcosm of the entire camera industry.Japan International Camera Imaging Industry Association released the 2016 digital camera, lens production, shipments data show that in 2014, 2015, 2016, three years, camera and lens Production and shipments are decreasing, the imaging industry into a difficult period.
Under the impact of smart phones and mobile software, the traditional dedicated consumer electronics equipment is no longer competitive, traditional image giants such as Nikon are also forced to embark on the road to transformation. Towards diversification or transformation is the development of these enterprises in recent years Trend.Among them, Canon to 3,300 billion yen acquisition of the Swedish camera giant Axis, into the field of surveillance cameras.Sony after the sale of PC business, the focus shift to games, entertainment.According to Sony's fiscal second quarter 2017 earnings release, Sony Sales were 2.6225 trillion yen, up 22.1% from the same period of previous year, mainly due to the growth of gaming and network services businesses.
In contrast, Nikon's road to transition does not seem smooth, and Nikon, which started out with military optics, has also entered the semiconductor, microscopic imaging, and medical diagnostic equipment fields, but the problem is that the business is modest and difficult to carry Leading the company forward the task.According to Nikon's annual report in FY17, the imaging department still contributed over 50% of Nikon's earnings, precision manufacturing sector contributed over 30% of the proceeds, and Nikon's optical instruments and medical sector in fiscal 2017 Poor performance.
Even worse for Nikon, the precision-manufacturing division, which is second only to the imaging division, has also shown signs of underperformance in recent years. More than a decade ago, Nikon was the world's largest semiconductor fabrication unit with a large collection of optical technologies, known as exposure processes Market share in the first place, but in recent years by the Dutch ASML take away market share, business continued losses.
From the current situation, in the case of a downturn in the camera market, Nikon will continue to cling to SLR in order to make better use of the business foundation accumulated in more than half a century, but this may not be a good medicine for the revival of Nikon, Nikon looks more and more like 2013 Kodak bankruptcy - the latter also equally well-known history, and even invented the earliest idiot camera and digital camera.