January 19, 2022 marks the tenth anniversary of the application for bankruptcy protection of American film giant Eastman Kodak. Kodak invented the first digital camera in 1975, but the company hesitated in commercialization, handed over the development opportunities of the digital age to its competitors, and declared bankruptcy in 2012.
Just a few days ago, the shutdown of Canon, another digital giant, also attracted attention. Canon's card digital cameras produced in Zhuhai once accounted for half of Canon's global sales of card digital cameras. According to the report released by the camera imaging products industry association (CIPA), the global shipment of digital cameras was 8.886 million units in 2020, compared with 120 million units in 2010.
The emergence of digital camera has subverted the traditional film camera. Ten years later, under the impact of smart phones, the era of digital camera is also coming to an end. However, with years of accumulation in technology and management capabilities, these digital giants not only quickly reshaped the industrial chain, but also found another blue ocean in the medical imaging industry.
once upon a time, the scenery was infinite
Chen Cong, a photography enthusiast and Beijing native, worked in a joint venture of Canon in Beijing in the 1990s. Chen Cong once traveled north and South with a heavy film camera. China has been to Tibet and abroad as far as South America. So far, he still talks about traditional cameras.
"It was a little heavy, but there was always a sense of pride. At that time, the camera was basically the only device to record images." Chen Cong told the first financial reporter, "I still remember buying a second-hand hassu for a large negative, a six by six centimeter square negative, also known as a medium frame. Later, I bought a Leica M camera to make it easier to take it out."
Chen Cong's willingness to spend money on cameras, in his own words, is "pursuing subdivided fields". "Leica's lens must be very excellent, with extremely high optical pixels and small portable volume. I took Hasu and Leica to Xinjiang and Tibet." Chen Cong's pride came naturally.
Later, around the beginning of 2000, digital cameras became popular, driving the huge sales of card machines. "At that time, there was a long line in front of the digital camera counter, and everyone had to limit the purchase." A person engaged in camera sales told the first financial reporter.
The development of tourism industry also drives the sales of cameras. Chen Cong recalled: "in the past, every Spring Festival holiday, we would travel everywhere. Although we later had a mobile phone, as a fever level photography lover, we still couldn't lack professional cameras. Before preparing for the trip, we would put together a sector of one-year savings and update equipment, which was also a sense of ceremony."
By 2010, the sales of digital cameras reached its peak, with annual sales of more than 120 million units worldwide and more than 40 million units in China. However, ten years later, the global shipment of digital cameras fell to less than 10 million in 2020, and the sales volume in China was less than 3 million.
The emergence of smart phones has subverted digital cameras. An insider who was once in charge of Sony Ericsson's mobile phone business told the first financial reporter: "at that time, I was responsible for the marketing of the K750 music mobile phone. It also has entertainment functions such as taking photos, but the pixels of the photos taken must not be compared with the optical camera."
These people said that now many mobile phones are also equipped with professional optical modules. For end users, there is almost no visible difference between the imaging results of smart phones and digital cameras. Moreover, mobile phones can instantly share with wechat circle of friends, so they have also become the preferred equipment for people's daily photography.
"The industry expects that the ordinary camera industry will survive for another 5-6 years at most, and the market may no longer exist, except for high-end luxury cameras." Zhou Qun, managing director of Ipsos consumer technology research institute, told the first financial reporter.
the epidemic accelerated and the industry ended
Under the impact of smart phones, the digital camera industry is slowly declining.
In 2017, Nikon announced to stop the operation of its subsidiary in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, on the grounds that the rise of smart phones has sharply reduced the small digital camera market. In 2021, Nikon closed two local camera lens factories in Japan. The two factories in Nagai City, Yamagata Prefecture and jijianmachi, Fukushima Prefecture stopped production, and only the factory in otahara City, Nikon Tochigi Prefecture, which produces high-end Nicol lenses, was retained. At the same time, the camera production business has also decided to move to Thailand.
The epidemic has become the last straw to crush the digital camera. According to the report released by CIPA, the global shipment of digital cameras in 2020 was 8.886 million units, down 41.6% from 2019. Chen Cong said that since the epidemic, there have been significantly fewer tourists, and photographic equipment can not be sold naturally.
With the development of the epidemic, the tourism industry is one of the industries that have been hardest hit. According to the data released by the Ministry of culture and tourism, in the first three quarters of 2021, China's total tourist arrivals were 2.689 billion, an increase of 39.1% over the same period of last year, which returned to 58.5% in the same period of 2019 before the epidemic; China's tourism revenue (total tourism consumption) was 2.37 trillion yuan, an increase of 63.5% over the same period last year, which returned to 54.4% in the same period in 2019 before the epidemic.
Digital cameras are also affected. Olympus, which has been operating the camera business for 84 years, split the relevant business and withdrew from the camera market in 2020 after shutting down the Shenzhen factory. This week, Canon Zhuhai also announced that due to the sharp contraction of the global camera market in recent years and the continuation of the covid-19 epidemic, the company faced unprecedented difficulties in operation and made the decision to terminate production.
It is understood that Canon Zhuhai factory mainly produces lenses and low-end digital cameras commonly known as "card machines". It said that on the one hand, the epidemic has stopped the tourism market, which makes all digital cameras sell poorly; On the other hand, the epidemic has led to a shortage of global chip supply, which has also led to a shortage of parts in the upstream of canon.
"Considering various factors such as the supply chain, we made the decision to terminate the production of Zhuhai factory." A canon spokesman told China business news.
"The main reason for the closure of Canon Zhuhai factory is the epidemic situation, because there are no downstream customers in Canon's own industrial chain." Zhou Qun explained to the first financial reporter, "Canon's own industrial chain is very long. As the demand for downstream digital cameras is reduced, there is no demand for upstream lenses and other optical components."
Two years ago, Fujifu, Canon's chairman and CEO, said that Canon's digital camera production would be halved in the next two years, and gradually turned to the professional market after the output reached the bottom. Zhou Qun also agrees with this view: "the professional market and luxury camera market will not disappear, which means that the market of camera enterprises will become smaller and more specialized, and make profits by selling a very small number of high value-added products, which is also the specialty of Japanese and German equipment manufacturers."
Nikon recently released a high-end camera with a price of up to 100000 yuan, Nicol Z micro single camera, with a built-in 1.4 multiplier range mirror, which is regarded as "Hermes" in micro single.
reshaping the industrial chain
The industry believes that although the low-end "card machine" market can almost be replaced by smart phones, SLR and micro single camera still have a market.
Junxing Ishii, executive vice president of Canon China, said on his microblog: "in the Chinese market, we will adhere to both SLR and micro single to meet the diversified needs of Chinese consumers."
Compared with SLR cameras, the market attenuation speed of micro single (no reflection) cameras is slightly slower. CIPA data show that in 2020, the world shipped 2.37 million SLR cameras, a decrease of 47%; The non anti camera shipped 2.93 million units, down 26%. The non anti camera exceeded the SLR camera for the first time in the market.
"Canon will end the development and production of digital SLR cameras (including flagship models) by changing its production line to only produce non reflective systems, because non reflective cameras will become the mainstream of digital cameras," yushouxi Fujifu said
The integrated optical technology of smart phones has been greatly improved in recent years. Combined with AI algorithm, the effect of mobile phone photography can reach or even far exceed that of ordinary digital cameras. According to the research of trend force, three lenses will surpass two lenses and become the mainstream in 2020, driving the continuous growth of smartphone camera module shipments. It is estimated that smartphone camera module shipments are expected to reach 4.92 billion in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 2%.
Although affected by the supply chain shortage of covid-19 epidemic, as the world's largest smartphone market, China's smartphone shipments have still increased steadily in recent years. According to the data of China Academy of information and communications (caict), the shipment of smart phones in China increased by 15.9% year-on-year to 340 million in 2021, lower than 370 million in 2019.
Today, high-end optical lens manufacturers, including Leica, Hasu and Zeiss, have gathered in the mobile phone market and carried out various forms of cooperation with Chinese mobile phone brands. For example, Leica and Huawei, Zeiss and vivo X series, one plus 10 Pro mobile phones have updated the lens of Hasu version 2.0, and oppo and Sony have jointly developed the flagship front sensor imx709.
Zhou Qun pointed out: "the performance of smart phones is improving faster and faster, which is largely based on the ability of AI computing. In the past, we relied on cameras because the optical ability of mobile phones was not enough. From the perspective of consumer terminals, they don't need very complex products, as long as they meet the needs of photography."
Zhou Qun believes that in the next few years, The iterative development of the upstream technology of the industry will be faster than the growth of the consumer: "the market change in the technology driven era is that the iteration of this technology will quickly reshape various industrial chains and make many to C products change, such as intelligent driving and various medical products, which are not directly related to traditional consumer products."
accelerate into the blue ocean of medical imaging
Based on this change, China's industrial chain will face great reconstruction challenges in the future. Zhou Qun pointed out: "the shutdown of Canon Zhuhai is a warning to the industrial chain. The original products can no longer adapt to the development of the times, so the upstream and downstream industrial chains also need to respond flexibly to expand different fields."
Of course, as a digital camera giant, Canon itself is also transforming into a more promising medical field. At the Expo last year, Canon made its debut in the Medical Museum and released a variety of medical imaging products, including oct-s1 ultra wide angle blood flow optical coherence tomography and 3T magnetic resonance equipment equipped with high-definition MR imaging technology. Previously, Canon has acquired Toshiba's medical instrument business and applied photography technology to the production of precision medical examination instruments such as PET-CT.
In addition, Canon also applies image processing system technology to emerging fields such as Siasun Robot&Automation Co.Ltd(300024) production system management and automatic driving, and makes full use of artificial intelligence technology to turn some production lines to the production of industrial cameras, which will be used for automatic quality detection at the construction site and automatic crack detection of tunnels and bridges. Canon also expects to occupy a place in the world's low orbit satellite industry in the future. The low orbit satellite manufactured by the company using superb photography technology was launched in 2017.
Enterprises in other traditional imaging industries, including Olympus and Fuji, are also accelerating their medical transformation. For example, Olympus and others are absolutely dominant in the field of endoscopy. According to the data of evaluate Med tech, in 2015, the global medical endoscope market was USD 16.4 billion; In 2016, the global medical endoscope market was US $18.5 billion, with a growth rate of 12.8%; In 2019, the sales scale of the global endoscope market was USD 24 billion.
China's market also has great potential. According to the standard of gastrointestinal endoscopy once a year over 40, about 300 million people in China need gastrointestinal endoscopy every year, and more than 90% of the medical devices used are imported products.
Earlier last year, Fujifilm announced the acquisition of Hitachi's diagnostic imaging business and expanded its product line in the field of medical imaging. These new products include various CT, X-ray, ultrasound and MR systems, and endoscopic ultrasound PACS, which makes Fujifilm capable of competing with global medical imaging companies such as Siemens Medical, GE Medical and Philips.
Fujifilm diosynth biotechnology and Kodak are also involved in the production of API in the United States.
Although the epidemic is a "devastating" blow to digital cameras, there are also opportunities for the medical imaging industry. Kodak has a history of more than 100 years in the field of medical imaging, and now it has been renamed Ruike medical. Liu Jie, President of Ruike medical Greater China, told the first financial reporter: "the epidemic is an unfortunate event, but it is also an opportunity for enterprises. We are rethinking how to reshape the product structure." With more and more traditional digital imaging giants accelerating into the medical imaging track, Liu Jie believes that it is almost inevitable to intensify the competition in the industry pattern in the future.
