Canon Inc., the Japanese technology giant, wheeled a growth of 19.9% in net sales to ¥4,080 billion ($36.1 bn) – smashing an increase of 60.6% in net income to ¥241.9 billion ($2.1 bn) for the fiscal year 2017 ended December 31.
Four new businesses incorporated this year – commercial printing, network cameras, industrial equipment, and medical – drove company’s total sales by 24% in 2017. The growth was impressive 20% even excluding medical impact.
Although more than 78% of the company sales came from overseas: Americas (27%), Europe (25%), and Asia and Oceania (26%), nevertheless domestic and Asia and Oceania stroked real tremors of 25% and 30% respectively.
Operating results also include revenues of Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation (TMSC) which was acquired by Canon Inc.in December 2016 and officially is now Canon Medical Systems after corporate name change as of January 4.
More celebrated for making office equipment and cameras – Canon’s acquisition of TMSC is planned to propel the group into a leading healthcare conglomerate – dogging an ambitious revenue plan of ¥5,000 billion ($44bn) by 2020.
In Office business segment, the sale of office multifunction devices (MFDs) including next-generation color models totaled ¥1865.9 billion as demand in emerging countries showed the motions of recovery. Strong sale in hardware and consumables of laser printer also supported the increase.
Smartphones obstructed the growth of interchangeable-digital and compact cameras however strong demand of advanced-amateur-models allowed Canon to maintain top share in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Aided by larger sale in home-use and large format inkjet printers, Imaging Systems division’s sale increased to ¥1,136.2 billion.
The novel ‘Medical System’ business unit, established at the beginning of the second quarter of 2017 posted a sale of ¥436.2 billion which includes radiography, CT, MR, ultrasound, chemical analyzers and ophthalmic equipment.
Aquilion Precision CT Scanner helped to increase the sale of computed tomography (CT) systems in 2017 and to maintain top share in Japanese market. The sale of Aplio i-series ultrasound systems also remained firm.
The sale of semiconductor lithography included in in Industry and Others segment increased as well – as a result of higher demand for memory devices used in data centers. FPD lithography equipment and manufacturing equipment for OLED panels increased significantly due to growing demand of smartphones. The other highlight for the year was the solid sale of network cameras altogether increasing sale by 25.2% to ¥731.7 billion.
In a mix of global economic circumstances, Canon Inc. projects its net sales at ¥4,300 billion – an increase of 5.4% and net income at ¥280 billion – an increase of 15.7% for FY2018.