Canon eyes China for new growth prospects

Japanese camera and imaging equipment maker Canon Inc will increase its investment in China and accelerate localization efforts by strengthening cooperation with Chinese partners in the fields of big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence, in a bid to unlock further business potential.

"China has become one of our most important markets around the world, and we always attach great importance to our development here," said Howard Ozawa, executive vice-president of Canon and the president and CEO of Canon China.

He said the Chinese market, which still shows huge growth potential, contributed the most in Canon's product sales among all the countries and regions in Asia. For instance, the sales of digital cameras in China topped the list worldwide in the January-June period this year.

"The whole Asian market, especially China, has become an important engine to drive Canon's cameras business growth globally," Ozawa said, adding he is confident of the company's prospects in China, and aspires to seize the opportunities provided by China's new round of high-level opening-up strategies.

He said that though the Chinese economy is slowing, the country is still a high-speed growth market in the world.

According to Ozawa, Canon plans to launch new companies in China, improve and strengthen its businesses spanning research and development, production, sales and services, as well as introduce more state-of-the-art imaging products, technologies and standards to various industries.

The company also foresees huge development opportunities in the medical equipment market under the guidance of the Healthy China 2030 Initiative, which aims to boost the market for healthcare services to 16 trillion yuan ($2.3 trillion) by 2030.

Industry data showed that the medical equipment sector in China earned a revenue of 530.4 billion yuan in 2018, up 19.86 percent from the level in 2017. In 2020, the market size is expected to reach 760 billion yuan.

In 2016, Canon agreed to buy Toshiba Corp's medical equipment unit for nearly $6 billion to enter the high-margin medical devices sector.

"With the industry and consumption upgrading, domestic high-end manufacturing and high-tech service sectors have a fast-growing demand for overseas products, such as important equipment and key components, as well as high-end electronic products. These are precious opportunities for Canon to further expand its presence in China," he said.

Ozawa pointed out that China is at the forefront of developing cutting-edge technologies, which will give birth to new industrial applications and innovation. Technologies like 5G seem like a revolution in the data industry and will have deep integration with industrial facilities, medical equipment and transportation, he said.

Liang Zhenpeng, a consumer electronics analyst said it is an inevitable trend that the camera market is shrinking and traditional camera makers have to seek new growth points, expand product chains and move toward diversified portfolios.