Canon Philippines targets to triple net sales by 2025
THE LOCAL arm of the Japanese digital imaging solutions company, Canon Marketing Philippines Inc. (CMPI) targets to triple its net sales by 2025 on the back of its diversified product range and the country’s consistent gross domestic product (GDP) growth, according to the company’s chief executive.
“Because of the country’s GDP growth, we expect to grow year by year, that’s the first factor. Secondly, we have a quite diverse product range...so we have big room [to grow] in several areas from cameras, personal printers and even business-to-business machines and commercial printers,” Kazuhiro Ozawa, President and CEO of CMPI, told BusinessWorld in an interview during the launch of its new mini photo printer and its newest full frame mirrorless camera on Monday at XYLO at the Palace in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.
Last year, Mr. Ozawa said the company’s sales grew by about 7%. This is expected to grow more than 10% every year starting this year as the company implements changes in the operations and services of its business segment.
“That’s a dynamic change we started to do last year. So we expect to see the improvement this year onwards,” he said.
One of the changes implemented was introducing end-to-end solutions for their business customers including service, security, and dependability.
Currently, the sales of CMPI are skewed towards their consumer products — cameras and personal printers, among others — which make up 70% of the company’s sales, while the remaining 30% is from the business segment.
“We could’ve grown more [in 2018] but at least the good thing is despite the difficulties in the market, we kept improving, which is a good thing,” Mr. Ozawa said.
He said in the future, the company aims to see an equal share of sales between the two segments, with the business segment expected to accelerate in the next two to three years.
NEW PRODUCTS
During Monday’s launch, the company announced it will introduce the Oce Colorado 1640 64-inch roll-to-roll printer by the second quarter. The printer uses UV Gel technology which will eliminate the usual odor from large format printing jobs.
The second quarter of the year will also see the launch of Therefore Online, a cloudbased information management solution which allows secure archiving of paper or electronic information.
On the consumer side of the spectrum, the launch on Monday highlighted the Canon EOS RP, the full-frame mirrorless camera announced earlier in the year.
The camera is said to only weigh 485 grams and is the most compact and lightest model yet in Canon’s full-frame series. The camera is priced starting P89,998.
The company also released its Mini Photo Printer which uses Zero Ink technology, a dryprinting technology that enables printing in color without the use of ink cartridges. The printer delivers 2x3 glossy photo prints said to be smudge-proof and scratchresistant with a peel-and-stick reverse side. It’s priced at P9,000, while stack of 20 photo papers is priced at P550.
Canon EOS RP is currently pre-selling from March 11-25 with offers including P40,000 worth of savings, while the Mini Photo Printer is currently available in three colors: rose gold, gray, and mint green.
Mini review of Canon’s Mini Photo Printer: During the launch, Mr. Ozawa said the printer can print photos in 40 seconds, which was true, according to the tests run by this writer. While the printer was incredibly handy and light — it’s just the size of a power bank — I found the software called Canon Mini Print harder to use when it comes to editing photos as adding text and positioning designs are a bit difficult and leads one to mess with the alignment of the photo itself.
The printing process is relatively painless and quick: the smartphone is paired with the printer via Bluetooth. The photos tend to be a bit washed out on paper and it’s not a high-definition photo printer, but for personal use, it is a nice option.
It does look very similar to HP’s Sprocket printer, which also uses Zero Ink technology.