Lights go out for ailing Kodak's digital cameras
Source: Agencies |
February 11, 2012, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
EASTMAN Kodak Co, the inventor of the digital camera, plans to get out of that business in the first half of this year as the bankrupt company looks to cut costs.
The decision to stop selling digital cameras along with pocket video cameras and digital picture frames marks the end of an era for Kodak, which also invented the handheld camera.
Kodak, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month, said on Thursday that getting out of cameras would result in "significant" job losses. Most of the 400 people in that business are based in Rochester, New York, and work in research and development and marketing.
Along with its reputation for making easy-to-use cameras for consumers, Kodak is also famous for its camera and photographic film contributions in movies.
Now, instead of designing its own cameras, Kodak will try to license its brand to other camera makers, several of which have already expressed "significant interest," spokesman Christopher Veronda said.
Kodak, which as recently as 2006 was one of the top three digital camera makers in the world, will stick with its desktop printer business, on which it has focused more recently.
"The printer initiative took over (in the last decade), and they took their eye off the ball in the camera and camcorder space," IDC analyst Christopher Chute said.
However, even in printers, Kodak is far from the top of the pile. It still lags in sixth place in the United States market despite being the only brand to grow in the double-digit percentage range in the last two years, according to NPD Group research. The US printer market is led by HP, Epson and Canon.
Kodak, which opened for business in 1880, also invented digital cameras with Wi-Fi connections and touch-screens as well as docking stations that made it easy to transfer photos to computers, according to IDC's Chute.
These were among the products that gave Kodak a 10 percent market share in 2006, behind Canon and Sony Corp. By 2010, it had dropped to seventh place behind rivals like Nikon and Samsung Electronics Co, according to IDC.
The company will take a charge of about US$30 million to leave the business. It expects the exit to generate more than US$100 million in annual operating savings.
Kodak - which once employed more than 60,000 people - has not disclosed its employee numbers since the end of 2010, when it announced that it had a work force of 18,800. Today's employee base is smaller than that, Veronda said.
NPD analyst Stephen Baker, who estimated that US camera sales had fallen about 20 percent in 2011 from 2010, said: "Getting out of a market that's declining rapidly ... is probably a good idea."
The decision to stop selling digital cameras along with pocket video cameras and digital picture frames marks the end of an era for Kodak, which also invented the handheld camera.
Kodak, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month, said on Thursday that getting out of cameras would result in "significant" job losses. Most of the 400 people in that business are based in Rochester, New York, and work in research and development and marketing.
Along with its reputation for making easy-to-use cameras for consumers, Kodak is also famous for its camera and photographic film contributions in movies.
Now, instead of designing its own cameras, Kodak will try to license its brand to other camera makers, several of which have already expressed "significant interest," spokesman Christopher Veronda said.
Kodak, which as recently as 2006 was one of the top three digital camera makers in the world, will stick with its desktop printer business, on which it has focused more recently.
"The printer initiative took over (in the last decade), and they took their eye off the ball in the camera and camcorder space," IDC analyst Christopher Chute said.
However, even in printers, Kodak is far from the top of the pile. It still lags in sixth place in the United States market despite being the only brand to grow in the double-digit percentage range in the last two years, according to NPD Group research. The US printer market is led by HP, Epson and Canon.
Kodak, which opened for business in 1880, also invented digital cameras with Wi-Fi connections and touch-screens as well as docking stations that made it easy to transfer photos to computers, according to IDC's Chute.
These were among the products that gave Kodak a 10 percent market share in 2006, behind Canon and Sony Corp. By 2010, it had dropped to seventh place behind rivals like Nikon and Samsung Electronics Co, according to IDC.
The company will take a charge of about US$30 million to leave the business. It expects the exit to generate more than US$100 million in annual operating savings.
Kodak - which once employed more than 60,000 people - has not disclosed its employee numbers since the end of 2010, when it announced that it had a work force of 18,800. Today's employee base is smaller than that, Veronda said.
NPD analyst Stephen Baker, who estimated that US camera sales had fallen about 20 percent in 2011 from 2010, said: "Getting out of a market that's declining rapidly ... is probably a good idea."
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
