Digital Camera Sales Soaring

According to the PMA Newsline the digital camera market has been very good to the Japanese manufacturers. Both Olympus Optical Co. Ltd. and Canon Inc. have posted record-high profits for their fiscal year ending March 31. Global digital camera shipments were up 70 percent on the year to 24.55 million units in 2002.

Olympus, Sony Corp., Canon and Fujifilm are fiercely competing to win the lion's share of the global camera market, with each company holding about 20 percent each. Olympus' digital camera division has returned to profitability. At the top five manufacturers, including Nikon Corp., operating profits in their digital camera-related divisions rose 130 percent in fiscal 2002.

Konica Corp. and Minolta Co. Ltd. which plan to merge their operations in August, both reported record-high group pretax propfits for fiscal 2002. Minolta saw ultrathin digital cameras sell briskly, and Konica enjoyed robust sales of small models with resolution of five million pixels. Casio Computer Co. Ltd. and Pentax Corp. also saw digital camera sales help shore up their earnings.