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Do you think Canon can only make cameras? No! Digital camera giant Canon has also announced its foray into the automotive industry. On January 16, several media reported that Canon announced that the company was seeking new business types and said it would use optical lens technology to manufacture automotive cameras for automotive autonomous driving systems, implying that Canon would also enter the automotive industry.

According to media reports, Canon has signed a memorandum of cooperation with Tier IV, an open-source autonomous driving company, to jointly develop L4 autonomous driving technology, and Canon will produce dedicated on-board cameras for the company. In addition, Canon will also devote itself to the development of a driving monitoring system (DMS) that can use cameras to monitor drivers 'behavior in real time and realize various auxiliary driving functions such as fatigue driving reminders.

According to public information, Tier IV is a member of Hon Hai Group MIH Electric Vehicle Alliance and received a strategic investment of US $9 million in 2019. The company plans to launch its own L4 autonomous driving system in 2022. After the digital camera giant Canon joins, the two sides will jointly develop related vehicle camera products such as autonomous driving and advanced automatic driving assistance system (ADAS), which will be reproduced on Tier IV autonomous driving vehicles for testing.

Canon's cross-border participation in the development of automobile tracks is not unexpected. As early as 2013, Canon frequently crossed borders between different fields. In 2013, Canon acquired the Dutch company Ossina and expanded its commercial printing business; in 2014, Canon acquired the video management software company Maxthon; In 2015, it invested in the acquisition of surveillance camera manufacturer Axis, and in 2016, it invested US $5.9 billion to acquire Toshiba Medical Equipment Company to enter the medical device industry. Even the medical device industry was crossed by Canon. Looking back at Canon's cross-border car track, it is actually a ghost.

However, Canon's frequent cross-border development in recent years is not optimistic. Check Canon's business development in recent years. The data shows that Canon's operating profit in 2018 is 342.5 billion yen, and its operating profit will seriously decline to 110.5 billion yen by 2020. In terms of net sales, Canon's net sales were 4 trillion yen in 2017 and fell directly to 3.2 trillion yen (about 178 billion yuan) by 2020. In addition, in terms of camera shipments, Canon's global digital camera shipments in 2011 were 115.524 million units, but by 2020 there will be less than 9 million units left. According to the latest statistics, only 732536 digital cameras were shipped worldwide in November 2021, down 29.6% year-on-year and 48.7% compared with November 2019.

It is worth mentioning that on January 12, Canon announced the closure of Zhuhai factory. The announcement showed that due to the sharp contraction of global camera market and the impact of epidemic situation, the company faced unprecedented difficulties in operation. The headquarters is adjusting the overall operating structure of the Group and has decided to terminate the production of the Company.

According to the data, Canon has 15 companies in China, whose main business includes printers, mechanical equipment, software development, semiconductor equipment, etc. Canon Zhuhai is the only production base for digital cameras, digital cameras, image sensors and lenses in Chinese mainland. The shutdown of the factory also means that Canon has moved camera production out of the mainland of China.

Under this background, Canon is right to seek diversified development channels, but for Canon, the automobile industry is still a brand-new business at present, and this business cannot immediately improve Canon's shrinking development situation, so it is not difficult to predict that Canon will still be in a state of continuous decline in performance in the short term.

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