Konica Minolta exits cameras January 19, 2006
Read more Digital cameras
The rise of digital camera has claimed another victim in Konica Minolta, just one week after Nikon abandoned the film camera market.
The company which has been around since the old days of snapping pics is throwing in the towel, announcing its withdrawal from the whole camera business. It will officially pull out of the digital camera sector by March and the photo business by March 2007. It’s a shame that a company like this – which developed the first auto-focus cameras – is going to the wall because of the pressure of trying to compete with much cheaper, inferior offerings. In a statement, the company said:
“In today’s era of digital cameras, where image sensor technologies such as CCD is indispensable, it became difficult to timely provide competitive products even with our top optical, mechanical and electronics technologies.”
“We have reached an agreement with Sony to transfer a portion of assets regarding digital SLR camera system to Sony. In this relation, we have decided to withdraw from camera business, such as film cameras and digital cameras.”
A shame, but you can expect even more of the old guard to fall in the coming year.
Full Press Release
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
RSS Feed
Comments
Not the first and not the last, this year will be interesting to see how many companies stop doing film cameras.