Canon India sales to remain flat this year due to decline in compact camera demand

KOLKATA: Japanese digital imaging major, Canon said its India revenue will be flat this year due to the shrinking compact digital camera market in the country hit by growing popularity and affordabaility of smartphones and tablets.

While Canon was initially targeting a modest 15% growth in sales this fiscal, the company said sales this fiscal will be same as last year at around Rs 1850 crore. The company was initially targeting Rs 2,125 crore sales this year.

“The saving grace has been the 12% increase in our B2B business led by managed printer services, which compensated for the 12% decline in our consumer business,” said Canon India executive vice president Alok Bharadwaj at a press meet here on Wednesday.

Bharadwaj said the compact camera market in India declined by almost 30% between January-August this year over the same period last year. The worst hit is the entry-level segment, or models priced up to Rs 10,000, which declined by more than 50% this year. The camera business contributes some 43% to Canon India’s revenue, which is expected to be around Rs 900 crore this year.

“The consumer behaviour has changed whereby they now prefer to take pictures on their smartphones or tablets and instantly upload it on picture or social networking sites. While we are trying to offer such capabilities in our compact cameras, the focus is also going to be on DSLR segment which is growing upwards of 10% and we want to promote it as a lifestyle product,” Bharadwaj said.

Canon is lining up newer models of digital SLR cameras and has stared offering combo offers bundling two lenses instead of one to entice consumers. “The DSLR cameras contribution will increase to 60% this year to our total camera sales by revenue. We expect to grow the segment by 20%,” said Bharadwaj. The size of the DSLR market in India is 2.5 lakh units which is projected to double by 2015.

At the sametime, Canon India plans to focus on the B2B business with newer services like digitisation targeting sectors like banking, financial services, insurance and pharma.