Canon Plans to Roll Out Nearly 20 New Compact Digital Cameras

Canon, Japan's largest maker of office machines, is also busy jostling with electronics giant Sony Corp. for the top share of the booming digital camera market worldwide.

Takashi Oshiyama, head of Canon's digital imaging business group, told Reuters in an interview that his firm's long history building cameras would give it the upper hand against its rivals, many of which have only been making cameras for a few years.

"We have a 67-year history making cameras and there is still lots of technology gathered over that time stored away in the shed," Oshiyama said at Canon's headquarters in Tokyo.

"Those companies out there that have no experience producing film cameras have yet to create a camera that performs like a real camera should. I won't say who that is."

Oshiyama said Canon planned to launch "about twice" as many compact digital cameras in 2004 as the nine it rolled out this year. That would help it achieve a market share of 25 percent, up from around 20 percent in 2003 and 15 percent last year.

Read the entire Reuter's press release.