Comments
Canon India, a fully-owned subsidiary of Canon Singapore Pvt Ltd, sees 2020 “as a moratorium year”.
While camera sales and medical printing business have been slowing down because of the pandemic; printers, one of the segments that the company has been focusing on for quite sometime, are witnessing “recovery” with online sales picking up.
According to Kazutada Kobayashi, President and CEO, Canon India, a part of the high street (sales) have resumed; while, printer at-home demand has gone up. In fact, printers have emerged as one of the top 10 home items that are being ordered.
Small, medium firms driving demand
Apart from home users, a majority of small and medium enterprises — who may now be operating from home or are restarting facilities — are among those driving demand.
Printer sales (B2B and B2C segments put together) account for 50 per cent of the company’s India revenues.
Canon competes with HP and Epson in the home printer segment, while in the office and commercial printer categories; it competes with HP and Konica Minolta.
“For us 2020 is like a moratorium year and we hope to see growth again from 2021 onwards. However, a bit of recovery is being seen since unlocking began. The largest recovery is in the online segment with printer at-home demand going up,” he told BusinessLine .
India continues to be among “one of the promising” and “high growth” countries for Canon. Its offerings in India continue to be predominantly imported with printers and copiers coming from Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and China. Cameras are imported from Japan.
Camera sales yet to pick up
Camera sales are yet to pick up. According to Kobayashi, camera sales are discretionary by nature and there will be a “gradual resumption” of demand in the category. He expects recoveries only towards the end of the year when the wedding season kicks in.
The company had recently launched two models in the full frame mirror-less camera category. Kobayashi hopes that the new launches will help stimulate demand.
Canon has a 50 per cent market share in cameras and competes with Nikon and Sony.
The company also plans to expand its medical printing system or healthcare imaging business. “We will be expanding the segment once the Covid situation normalises,” he said.
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.