Canon releases their 2020 financials

Canon released their financials for 2020, and as to be expected, with COVID-19 disrupting most of the economies around the globe, sales have slumped when compared to 2019. Canon made great lengths in their presentation to highlight that they beat their 4Q projections, however, overall, for the calendar year, Canon suffered a 12% loss in net sales and a 33% loss in net income.

I totally get Canon highlighting optimism. 2020 was a year unlike any other, since, well, the great pandemic in 1918-20 with the Spanish flu.

When it comes to cameras, the imaging system division was bumped up by ink jet printers and the sales of the EOS R system in the second half of 2020. Canon actually increased their operating profit for imaging by 49% from 2019, with a decreased amount of sales of 25%.

Canon is expecting the market to continue to decline over 2021 and is focusing on advanced amateur and professional markets for cameras this year.

Under these conditions, we will work to further strengthen our lineup of EOS R cameras and RF lenses to facilitate our aim of expanding our market share among professional and advanced amateur users where demand is solid. For RF lenses, we have steadily expanded our lineup to 18 models. And through synergy with our enhanced camera lineup, we have significantly increased RF lens sales from the second half of last year. This year, we will enhance our RF lens lineup even further to respond to the need to capture a multitude of different images. And with the sales of cameras, we will improve our product mix to facilitate our aim of exceeding last year’s sales.

Overall Canon's marketshare in the industry has relatively remained unchanged, however, it has been sliding downwards since 2016.

To be fair, transitioning your market from DSLR's to mirrorless is bound to create some upheaval. Canon has also had a steady and slow decline in camera sales. For an indication on just how far things have fallen for Canon and the industry, we have this graph showing the overall sales and Canon's numbers since 2013.