Minolta Co., Ltd.

views updated May 29 2018

Minolta Co., Ltd.

3-13, Azuchi-machi 2-chome
Chuo-ku, Osaka 541
Japan
Telephone: (06) 6271-2251
Fax: (06) 6266-1010
Web site:http://www.minolta.com

Public Company
Incorporated: 1937 as Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko Kabushiki Kaisha
Employees: 4,881
Sales: ¥482.76 billion (US$4.55 billion) (2000)
Stock Exchanges: Tokyo Osaka Nagoya Frankfurt Dusseldorf
Ticker Symbol: 7753
NAIC: 333315 Photographic and Photocopying Equipment Manufacturing; 333314 Optical Instrument and Lens Manufacturing; 333313 Office Machinery Manufacturing; 334119 Other Computer Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing; 334519 Other Measuring and Controlling Device Manufacturing

Minolta Co., Ltd. is one of Japan’s “big five” camera makers and a leading manufacturer of digital office equipment, including photocopiers, printers, word processors and other imaging products, radiometric instruments, and planetariums. The company has production facilities in Japan, the United States, Germany, France, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, and Brazil, and a worldwide marketing network.

1928: Japan-Germany Camera Company Begins to Build Cameras

Minolta Co., Ltd. began modestly in 1928 when 28-year-old Kazuo Tashima agreed to represent his father’s import-export company, Tashima Shoten, on a government-backed trade mission to Paris to promote Japanese silk. In Paris, Tashima toured a factory that specialized in high-grade optics, and decided he could produce similar equipment profitably in Japan. Japanese businessmen, including Tashima’s father, opposed the idea of producing optical equipment domestically. Unable to start his new venture as a part of Tashima Shoten, Tashima borrowed money from his father’s chief clerk and went into business on his own.

Tashima opened shop on November 11, 1928, calling his venture Nichi-Doku Shashinki Shoten (Japan-Germany Camera Company). The name reflected the company’s reliance on German technology and expertise. Partners Willy Heilemann, an importer of German items in Kobe, and Billy Neumann, a German engineer with a background in optical instruments, brought state-of-the-art German technology to the new firm. By March 1929, the staff of about 30 was producing one bellows camera, called the Nifcalette, each day—with imported lens and shutter. Within three months, production had grown to 100 cameras a month.

A year later, the Great Depression hit Japan hard, bringing labor strife and strikes. Tashima later referred to his company as “a small boat which set sail right into the storm.” Nevertheless, Tashima promoted development of new camera models as the Depression intensified and introduced several models in 1930 and 1931.

A new model introduced in 1933 first carried the Minolta brand name, a name Tashima created to sound like the Japanese word “minoru-ta,” which means ripening rice field. The name reminded Tashima of a proverb his mother frequently used, meaning that the more successful one becomes, the more humble one must be: “The ripest ears of rice bow their heads lowest.” The name, however, also has a Western meaning, as an acronym for Machinery and Instruments Optical by Tiashima.

In 1934, Nichi-Doku Shashinki Shoten began to sell the Minolta Vest, the product that made a reputation for the company. Like other camera companies, Minolta used sheepskin to make a flexible camera bellows. When a shortage of imported sheepskin threatened production, the company developed the first rigid bellows of synthetic resin for the Minolta Vest. The innovation made the Vest easier to focus and less expensive. For the first time, a Minolta product was successful outside of Japan.

The Vest’s success made expansion possible. Tashima built new production facilities, including a factory devoted to lens production at Sakai. His emphasis on innovation led to the development of the first twin-lens reflex camera in Japan, the Minolta Flex, in 1937. That same year, Tashima reorganized and incorporated the company and renamed it Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko Kabushiki Kaisha (Chiyoda Optics and Fine Engineering Limited) to reflect its broader focus.

Production of Binoculars and Other Optical Products During World War II

In September 1940, Japan joined Germany and Italy in the Tripartite Pact, which divided Asia and Africa into spheres of influence. Japan’s domain was to be Southeast Asia. As it became clear that war was ahead, Japanese military planners determined to develop precision optical equipment for range finding, navigation, and bombing aids.

During World War II, when the U.S. military used electronics to track enemy ships and aircraft, the Japanese depended upon optics. Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko produced high-powered binoculars and other optical instruments for wartime use. Demand was so high that it opened the Itami plant in 1942 solely to manufacture optical glass.

Japan ultimately was devastated by the war. One of the primary goals of the Allied occupation forces was the restoration of Japan’s economy. Tashima, who was determined to put Minolta back on its feet, had employees dig through the company’s bombed-out factories to salvage parts. In 1946, the company produced Japan’s first postwar camera, the Semi III.

The Japanese camera industry’s major pre-war competitors in Germany had been ruined during wartime bombing. As a result, worldwide markets opened to the Japanese optical industry during the post-war years. The Minolta Semi III was the first camera to be exported after the war with a shipment of 170 cameras in 1947.

Also that year, Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko became the first company to produce coated lenses in Japan, and, in 1948, it began to design and produce a camera to compete with the industry standard, the Leica 35 millimeter. Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko designed a new sand-cast body with interchangeable lenses and a hinged back cover to make film loading easier. The new Minolta 35 included a faster f2.8 lens and more dependable flash photography.

Expanded Exports Starting in Mid-1950s

The company still had to contend with its poor image in overseas markets because the made-in-Japan label still implied goods of inferior quality. However, other Japanese camera firms were changing that perception. Takeshi Mitarai of Canon—then known as Precision Optical—persuaded U.S. occupation forces to stock his cameras in military stores. U.S. servicemen stationed in the East took the cameras home, and Japanese-made cameras soon came to stand for high-quality lenses. That new reputation was reinforced industry-wide when U.S. photographers assigned to the Korean War began to use Nikon cameras; they claimed that their Nikon lenses were superior to the Leicas they were accustomed to using. Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko began exporting to the United States in 1955 through an agreement with the American firm FR Corp. Minolta introduced another breakthrough, the achromatic double-coated lens, in 1956, giving the company entry into the European market beginning late in 1957.

In 1958, Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko put its optical experience to a new use by building its first planetarium. The timing for this venture was propitious: the Soviet Union had launched Sputnik I, the first earth-orbiting artificial satellite, the year before, sparking new interest in space.

Also in 1958, Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko introduced its first single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. The SLR allowed a photographer to see exactly what was being shot through the camera lens by using an angled mirror that reflected the image to the viewer. Previous cameras—called rangefinder cameras—used two lenses, one to take the photo and one for the photographer to look through. When interchangeable lenses came into use in the early 1950s, the rangefinder posed problems: the photographer saw the same image no matter what lens was used, instead of seeing what the camera would actually photograph. The difference between the two images could be substantial. By the mid-1950s, the major Japanese camera companies were developing the more convenient SLRs, and Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko introduced its version, the SR-2, in 1958. Its major competitor was Nikon’s SLR, also introduced in 1958, which was recognized as the best of the high-end SLRs on the market.

Company Perspectives:

Looking to the future, Minolta has adopted a new articulation of its corporate mission. First, the Company aims to contribute to the global community by creating ever-greater value and excellence. Responding to the demands of the coming decade, we plan to help build a more abundant society by offering superior products and services and complementing them with additional benefits. Second, Minolta is dedicated to continuously creating and implementing vision-oriented management strategies designed to ensure the Company’s ability to maintain the stable development of the Minolta Group into a more vital organization that provides opportunity for individual fulfillment.

Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko opened its first overseas subsidiary, Minolta Corporation, in New York City in 1959. The company chose to name the subsidiary Minolta because of the popularity of its Minolta brand name. Shortly thereafter, in mid-1962, Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko changed its own name to Minolta Camera Co., Ltd. Throughout the 1960s, the company continued improving its camera line. It introduced the Uniomat, with a programmed shutter, in 1960, which led to fully programmed autoexposure in the Hi-Matic. In 1962, John Glenn chose the Hi-Matic to take the first photos of earth from space. In 1966, Minolta introduced its longest-running camera line, the SR-T series, which it produced continuously until 1981. These cameras featured through-the-lens light metering, using a patented light compensator to improve exposure in backlit photos. These new products made Minolta more competitive in Europe; so Minolta opened a European subsidiary, Minolta Camera Handelsgesellschaft, in Hamburg in 1965.

Diversification in the 1960s and 1970s

More importantly, Minolta diversified. In 1960, the company entered the office copying market—an area that would prove as successful as cameras—when it produced its Copymaster. In 1962, it expanded into the data-retrieval field with the Minolta 401S microfilm reader-printer, and, in 1965, the company opened its Mikawa plant, which produced the Minoltafax 41, the first copier that could reduce document size.

Minolta continued to develop its links with the United States space program, developing the Minolta Space Meter, a state-of-the-art technology for measuring exposures, for the first manned orbit of the moon, the 1968 Apollo 8 mission. The meter was used on nine more Apollo missions, including the mission that landed a man on the moon in 1969.

Minolta developed digital watches, video recorders, and pocket calculators in the 1970s, although not all the company’s innovations were successful. In 1975, a Minolta-developed office copier that used a complex, high-resolution technology was launched just as plain-paper copiers took over the industry. The company introduced a single-lens reflex camera using cartridge film in 1976, but despite a $2 million advertising campaign in the U.S., the product was unsuccessful.

Other camera developments were more successful. In 1977, Minolta produced one of the first “smart” cameras. Its XD Series cameras had the first system to override user aperture settings in poor lighting.

Minolta also advanced in other areas. The company entered the field of medical instruments in 1977 with the development of a fingertip pulse oximeter. Its MS-18 Planetarium, built in Tokyo, contained the first fully automated planetarium system, and its new photocopiers produced higher-quality images and included both enlarging and reducing capabilities. These successes were particularly important because the camera market was saturated in Japan, Europe, and the United States.

Redefined Corporate Image in the 1980s

Minolta responded to the changes in its market by redefining itself. It adopted a new logo in 1981 to reflect its broader purpose, and redefined its mission as processing light and images in all types of environments.

In 1983, Tashima, who had run the company since he founded it, relinquished its presidency to his son, Hideo Tashima, and became chairman of the board, the position he held when he died in 1985.

In the 1980s, Minolta made advances in office-automation products, including copiers and a new word processor, but new camera technology brought the company the most attention. In 1985, Minolta unveiled its Maxxum, a SLR 35-millimeter camera with an autofocusing system. The Maxxum became a successful competitor to less-expensive non-SLR cameras, such as Canon’s Snappy and AE-1. A U.S. advertising campaign costing more than $15 million, and technological advances that made the Maxxum the European Camera of the Year for 1985, aided its success. The Maxxum challenged Canon’s preeminence in the 35-millimeter market, but it was not long before Minolta’s Japanese competitors struck back with autofocus cameras of their own. Canon improved on the Maxxum by building the focusing system into the lens itself instead of housing it in the camera body with a mechanical link to the lens, as Minolta had done. Canon’s advance made focusing faster, but its camera was more expensive than the Maxxum.

Key Dates:

1928:: Kazuo Tashima establishes Nichi-Doku Shashinki Shoten (Japan-Germany Camera Company).
1929:: The company’s first camera, the Nifcalette, is introduced.
1933:: The first camera to carry the Minolta brand name is launched.
1937:: The company is reorganized and incorporated as Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko Kabushiki Kaisha (Chiyoda Optics and Fine Engineering Limited).
1955:: The company begins to export to the United States.
1957:: The company begins to export to Europe.
1958:: Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko builds its first planetarium.
1959:: Minolta Corporation opens in New York City.
1960:: The company’s first office copier, the Copymaster, is introduced.
1962:: The company changes its name to Minolta Camera Co. Ltd.; it enters the data-retrieval field with its 401S microfilm reader-printer.
1977:: The company enters the medical equipment market with its fingertip pulse oximeter.
1983:: Kazuo Tashima is replaced as president of the company by his son Hideo Tashima and becomes chairman of the board.
1985:: Founder Kazuo Tashima dies.
1986:: Minolta enters the facsimile machine market.
1987:: Honeywell Inc. files a lawsuit against Minolta and other major camera makers.
1993:: Hideo Tashima becomes chairman and Osamu Kanaya replaces him as president.
1994:: The company name is changed to Minolta Co. Ltd.
1997:: Minolta Camera Sales Co. Ltd. and Minolta Business Equipment Trading Co. Ltd are merged to form Minolta Sales Co. Ltd.
1999:: Osamu Kanaya is replaced as company president by Yoshikatsu Ota.
2000:: Minolta forms a partnership with Konica Corporation.
2001:: Minolta sets up a joint venture with Fujitsu.

Minolta entered the facsimile machine market with the introduction of several models in 1986. Meanwhile, the company’s planetariums became more sophisticated, first in 1984 with the launch of the Infinium—the first single sphere model that used lens projection—then in 1989 with the introduction of the Infinium a, the first planetarium with a swing-type structure. Also developed by Minolta during this period were the first binoculars to offer continuous autofocusing, launched in 1990.

Difficult Times and a Comeback in the 1990s

Minolta suffered through a prolonged downturn in the early 1990s, with a number of developments contributing to its malaise. First, the camera market had become even more competitive in the late 1980s with the introduction of the first 35mm disposable camera, the QuickSnap from Fuji Photo Film, in 1987 and the first super-compact camera, Konica’s Big Mini, in 1989. More convenient and less expensive than the bulky, feature-packed cameras offered by Minolta, Canon, and the other major camera makers, the new smaller models quickly caught on, with Fuji seemingly coming out of nowhere to attain the top spot in cameras by 1992. During the same period, video cameras—or camcorders—became increasingly affordable and further eroded the sales of the traditional cameras Minolta specialized in.

A second factor in Minolta’s difficulties—although it affected the company’s financial results only in 1992—was the lawsuit filed by Honeywell Inc. in 1987 against Minolta. Honeywell had won approval for several patents relating to auto-focus technology, which it had intended to use in its own 35mm camera, an effort it abandoned in the mid-1970s. When auto-focus SLR cameras gained great popularity in the mid-1980s, Honeywell prepared lawsuits against nearly all the major camera makers. Minolta eventually settled with Honeywell out of court in 1992, agreeing to pay ¥16.9 billion (U.S.$125.1 million) for infringing patent rights. After posting a net loss of ¥2 billion in 1991, Minolta lost ¥36.1 billion in 1992, thanks in part to the settlement.

The third factor in the company’s overall decline was the prolonged Japanese recession of the early 1990s, which hurt domestic sales, and the appreciation of the yen, which hurt exports. Minolta’s net sales declined for three straight years, starting in 1992. Although the company’s losses narrowed each year, Minolta did not return to profitability until 1996. In the midst of these troubled years, Hideo Tashima became chairman in 1993, and Osamu Kanaya, who had served as president and COO of Minolta Corp., replaced Tashima as president.

To turn the company around, Tashima and Kanaya pursued three main objectives: moving production out of Japan to lessen the effects of the strong yen, developing a camera to compete in the compact category, and continuing to diversify the Minolta product line so as to derive a smaller percentage of revenues from cameras. The first objective of moving production overseas began to be implemented in 1992 with the establishment of Minolta Lorraine S.A., based in France. This facility was set up to make toner, lenses, and other components for imaging products; low-end copiers were later added to its assembly lines, with these products sold mostly in the European market. In 1994, production of plain-paper copiers and laser printers began in China through the Shilong Business Equipment Corporation subsidiary. That same year, Minolta entered into two joint ventures in China for the manufacture and sale of cameras and copiers.

In early 1995, Minolta successfully entered the compact camera category with the launch of the Riva Zoom 70W (known in Japan as the CAPIOS and in North America as the Freedom). Minolta also joined the cooperative development effort brought together by Eastman Kodak Co.—the other participants were Fuji, Canon, and Nikon—to create the Advanced Photo System (APS), an effort to revitalize the stagnant still photography market. APS offered easy loading and the ability to select from three photo sizes (4 inch by 6 inch, 4 inch by 7 inch, and a panoramic 4 inch by 10 inch) as pictures are taken. Minolta introduced a full line of APS cameras in early 1996 under the VECTIS brand. The VECTIS line included five compact models and a high-end SLR version that featured five interchangeable lenses. Later in 1996, Minolta launched a children’s camera tied to a new animated series.

The company’s desire for further diversification was high-lighted in mid-1994 by the decision to change the company name to Minolta Co., Ltd., dropping “Camera.” The company soon showed a renewed commitment to innovative new product development. In 1995, Minolta launched the BC 3000 book copying system, the first product able to produce high quality copies of bound books. Also in 1995, Minolta added digital cameras to the Minolta product family with the marketing of the RD-175, touted as “one of the smallest and lightest SLR-type digital cameras in the world.”

By 1996, Minolta had begun to turn its fortunes around, posting its first profit in five years, and was building on a revitalized reputation for product development and innovation. New products introduced that year included the CF900 multifunction machine, able to copy, scan, and print in full color; and the Infinium aII, bII, and cII planetariums, extensions of the Infinium line and “the world’s first projectors to enable planetarium visitors to experience virtual worlds.”

2000: A Shift Toward Office Equipment

Recognizing the growing demand for integrated, digital office machines and digital cameras, Minolta stepped up its research and product development work in 1997 by starting a new company in the heart of Silicon Valley. Minolta Systems Laboratory Inc. in San Jose, California, developed software for Minolta’s digital-based copiers, laser printers, and cameras. The company also set itself the target of generating 50 percent of sales from digital-related equipment the following year.

Several successful new products helped Minolta work towards that goal, including the Dimage V, a digital camera featuring a unique side-mounted lens that could be rotated 180 degrees and detached. Linked to the camera with a cable, it enabled the photographer to take pictures around a corner, over the top of a crowd or in tight spaces. This family of cameras was expanded in 1998 with the modular EX, offering interchangeable lenses, and the commercial-use RD 3000 SLR a year later. The Dimage name was also carried over into a range of commercial-use film scanners.

However, office machines were rapidly overtaking cameras as the primary focus of Minolta’s business. By 2000, office equipment Generaled nearly 75 percent of sales while cameras were down to about 20 percent.

Production of laser printers had been increased in 1997 with the launch of the PagePro series, marketed as PageWorks in North America. Two years later, Minolta acquired a 51 percent stake in QMS Ltd., an Alabama manufacturer specializing in color laser printers with which it had partnered since 1993. The companies integrated their sales, service, distribution, logistics, marketing and research and development operations to create the Minolta-QMS division, which became a wholly owned subsidiary in 2000.

Through the late 1990s, Minolta had expanded the DiALTA range of digital multifunction office machines and launched several more specialized products, such as the PS7000 digital book scanner, the only machine in the world capable of copying large bound materials up to A2 size, and the VIVID non-contact 3-D digitizers, which were widely used in the production of computer games and graphics, as well as by educators, museums and galleries, architects, engineers, and industrial designers.

Having seen Minolta through the transition, Osamu Kanaya stepped down as president in 1999. He remained on the board as advisor to his successor, Yoshikatsu Ota, who also took the title of representative director.

In the face of increasingly intense global competition, Minolta began a strategy of driving product development and increasing sales by establishing working relationships with other companies. In 2000, Minolta formed an alliance with Konica Corporation, a manufacturer of high-speed digital copiers, to develop office equipment and manufacture Konica’s new ‘polymerization’ toner.

A year later, there followed a joint venture with Fujitsu, Japan’s biggest computer maker, to develop and produce advanced color laser printers. F&M Imaging Technology was scheduled to launch its first products in the spring of 2002.

Moving into the 21^st century, Minolta was determined to be at the forefront of digital innovation, while also intent on bolstering its reputation as a “good corporate citizen.” A five-year plan introduced in 1999 included bringing its major manufacturing plants up to international environmental planning standards, increasing recycling, reducing waste, and making positive contributions to local communities.

Principal Subsidiaries

Minolta Sales Co., Ltd.; Minolta Planetarium Co., Ltd.; Minolta Office System Tokai Co., Ltd.; Minolta Office System Kinki Co., Ltd.; Minolta Office System Tokyo Co, Ltd.; Minolta Office System Kyushu Co. Ltd.; Aoi Camera Co., Ltd.; Sankei Precision Products Co., Ltd.; Toyohashi Precision Products Co., Ltd.; Nara Minolta Seiko Co., Ltd.; Nankai Optical Co., Ltd.; Okayama Minolta Seimitsu Co., Ltd.; Miki Minolta Kogyo Co., Ltd.; Minolta Components Co. Ltd.; MYG Disk Corporation; Minolta Software Laboratory Co. Ltd.; Tokyo Minolta Camera Service Co., Ltd.; Minolta Digital Solution Co., Ltd.; Minolta Logistics Co., Ltd.; Minolta Quality Service Co., Ltd.; Minolta Techno System Co. Ltd.; Minolta-QMS K.K; Minolta Corporation (U.S.A.); Minolta Business Solutions, Inc. (U.S.A.); Minolta Information Systems Inc. (U.S.A.); MINOLTA-QMS Inc. (U.S.A.); Mohawk Marketing Corporation (U.S.A.); Astro-Tec. Mfg., Inc. (U.S.A.); Minolta Systems Laboratory Inc. (U.S.A.); Minolta Advance Technology Inc. (U.S.A.); Minolta Canada Inc.; Minolta Business Equipment (Canada), Ltd.; Minolta Copiadora do Amazonas Ltda. (Brazil); Minolta GmbH (Germany); Minolta Europe GmbH (Germany); Minolta France S.A.; Minolta Lorraine S.A. (France); Minolta (UK) Limited; Minolta (Schweiz) AG (Switzerland); Minolta Austria Gesellschaft mbH; Minolta Camera Benelux B.V. (Netherlands); Minolta-QMS Europe B.V. (Netherlands); Minolta Business Equipment (Belgium) N.V.; Minolta Svenska AB (Sweden); Minolta Business Equipment Sweden AB; Minolta Norway AS; Minolta Italia S.p.A. (Italy); Minolta Portugal Limitada; Minolta Spain S.A.; Minolta Denmark A/S; Minolta Magyarorszag KFT. (Hungary); Minolta Polska sp. z.o.o. (Poland); Minolta spol. sr.o. (Czech Republic); Minolta Slovakia spol. sr.o.; Minolta Romania s.r.l.; UBA Minolta Baltia (Lithuania); Minolta Bulgaria o.o.d.; Minolta Ljubljana d.o.o. (Slovenia); Minolta Zagreb d.o.o. (Croatia); Minolta Beograd d.o.o. (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia); Minolta Ukraine; Minolta International Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. (China); Shanghai Minolta Optical Products Co., Ltd. (China); Wuhan Minolta Wiaic Office Automation Equipments Co., Ltd. (China); Minolta Hong Kong Limited; Minolta Industries (HK) Limited (Hong Kong); Minolta Singapore (PTE) Limited; Minolta Marketing (M) Sdn. Bhd. (Malaysia); Minolta Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.; Minolta Precision Engineering (M) Sdn. Bhd. (Malaysia); Minolta New Zealand Limited; Minolta Business Equipment Australia PTY. Ltd.; Minolta-QMS Australia.

Principal Competitors

Canon; Eastman Kodak; Fuji Photo Film; Xerox.

Minolta Co., Ltd.

views updated Jun 11 2018

Minolta Co., Ltd.

3-13, Azuchi-machi 2-chome
Chuo-ku, Osaka 541
Japan
(06) 271-2251
Fax: (06) 266-1010
Web site: http://www.minolta.com

Public Company
Incorporated: 1937 as Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko Kabushiki

Kaisha
Employees: 4,821
Sales: ¥365.75 billion (US$3.66 billion) (1996)
Stock Exchanges: Tokyo Osaka Nagoya Frankfurt Düsseldorf
SICs: 3651 Household Audio & Video Equipment; 3661 Telephone & Telegraph Apparatus; 3827 Optical Instruments & Lenses; 3861 Photographic Equipment & Supplies

Since Kazuo Tashima began using German technology to produce one camera a day in 1928, Minolta Co., Ltd. has gone on to become one of Japan’s Big Five camera makers. Although Minolta initially did so by copying German technology, it then developed new products on its own, and marketed them successfully in Europe and the United States. As the market for camera equipment matured in Japan, Europe, and the United States, the firm diversified into a number of related areas. Minolta is a major producer of cameras, photocopiers and other imaging products, radiometric instruments, and planetariums, with production facilities in Japan, the United States, Germany, France, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, and Brazil, and a worldwide marketing network.

Founded in 1928 to Build Cameras in Japan

Minolta began modestly in 1928 when 28-year-old Kazuo Tashima agreed to represent his father’s import-export company, Tashima Shoten, on a government-backed trade mission to Paris to promote Japanese silk. In Paris Tashima toured a factory that specialized in high-grade optics, and decided he could produce similar equipment in Japan profitably. Japanese businessmen, including Tashima’s father, opposed the idea of producing optical equipment domestically. Unable to start his new venture as a part of Tashima Shoten, Tashima borrowed money from his father’s chief clerk and went into business on his own.

Tashima opened shop on November 11, 1928, calling his venture Nichi-Doku Shashinki Shoten (Japan-Germany Camera Company). The name reflected the company’s reliance on German technology and expertise. Partners Willy Heilemann, an importer of German items in Kobe, and Billy Neumann, a German engineer with a background in optical instruments, brought state-of-the-art German technology to the new firm. By March 1929 the staff of about 30 was producing each day one bellows camera, called the Nifcalette—with imported lens and shutter. Within three months, production had grown to 100 cameras a month.

A year later the Great Depression hit Japan hard, bringing labor strife and strikes. Tashima later referred to his company as “a small boat which set sail right into the storm.” Nevertheless, Tashima promoted development of new camera models as the Depression intensified, and introduced several models in 1930 and 1931.

A new model introduced in 1933 first carried the Minolta brand name, which Tashima created. The name sounds like the Japanese word minoru-ta, which means ripening rice field. The term reminded Tashima of a proverb his mother frequently used, “The ripest ears of rice bow their heads lowest,” meaning that the more successful one becomes, the more humble one must be. The name, however, also has a Western meaning, as an acronym for Machinery and Instruments Optical by Tashima.

In 1934 the company began to sell the Minolta Vest, the product that made its reputation. Like other camera companies, Minolta used sheepskin to make a flexible camera bellows. When a shortage of imported sheepskin threatened production, the company developed the first rigid bellows of synthetic resin for the Minolta Vest. The innovation made the Vest easier to focus and less expensive. For the first time, a Minolta product was successful outside of Japan.

Produced Binoculars and Other Optical Products During World War II

In September 1940 Japan joined Germany and Italy in the Tripartite Pact, which divided Asia and Africa into spheres of influence. Japan’s was to be Southeast Asia. As it became clear that war was ahead, Japanese military planners determined to develop precision optical equipment for range-finding, navigation, and bombing aids.

During World War II, when the U.S. military used electronics to track enemy ships and aircraft, the Japanese chose optics. Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko produced high-powered binoculars and other optical instruments with wartime uses. Demand was so high that it opened the Itami plant in 1942 solely to manufacture optical glass.

Japan ultimately was devastated by the war. One of the primary goals of the Allied occupation forces was the restoration of Japan’s economy. That helped Tashima, who was just as determined to put Minolta back on its feet. Employees dug through the company’s bombed-out factories to salvage parts. In 1946 the company produced Japan’s first postwar camera, the Semi III.

Since the Japanese camera industry’s major prewar competitors, the Germans, had been ruined during wartime bombing—while the Japanese developed their own optical industry—worldwide markets first opened to the Japanese in the postwar years. The Minolta Semi III was the first camera to be exported after the war, with a shipment of 170 cameras in 1947.

Also that year, Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko became the first company to produce coated lenses in Japan, and in 1948 it began to design and produce a camera to compete with the industry standard, the Leica 35 millimeter. Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko designed a new sand-cast body in which lenses could be changed, with a hinged back cover to make film loading easier. The new Minolta 35 included a faster f2.8 lens and more dependable flash photography.

Expanded Exports Starting in Mid-1950s

The company still had to contend with its poor image in overseas markets. Japan had copied German lens technology, and the made-in-Japan label still implied goods of inferior quality. Other Japanese camera firms changed that perception. Takeshi Mitarai of Canon—then known as Precision Optical—persuaded U.S. occupation forces to stock his cameras in military stores. U.S. servicemen stationed in the East took their cameras home, and Japanese-made cameras soon came to stand for high-quality lenses. That new reputation was reinforced industrywide when U.S. photographers assigned to the Korean War began to use Nikon cameras; they claimed that their Nikon lenses were superior to the Leicas they were accustomed to using. Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko began exporting to the United States in 1955 through an agreement with the American firm FR Corp. The company introduced another breakthrough, the achromatic double-coated lens, in 1956, giving the company entry into the European market beginning late in 1957.

In 1958 Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko put its optical experience to a new use by building its first planetarium. The timing was propitious—the Soviet Union had launched Sputnik I, the first earth-orbiting artificial satellite, the year before, sparking new interest in space.

Also in 1958, Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko introduced its first single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. The SLR allowed a photographer to see exactly what was being shot through the camera lens by using an angled mirror that reflected the image to the viewer. Previous cameras—called rangefinder cameras—used two lenses, one to take the photo and one for the photographer to look through. When interchangeable lenses came into use in the early 1950s, the rangefinder posed problems: the photographer saw the same image no matter what lens was used, instead of seeing what the camera would actually photograph. The difference between the two images could be substantial. By the mid-1950s the major Japanese camera companies were developing the more convenient SLRs, and Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko introduced its version, the SR-2, in 1958. Its major competitor was Nikon’s SLR, also introduced in 1958, which was recognized as the best of the SLRs at the high end of the market.

Company Perspectives:

Founded in 1928, Minolta Co., Ltd. is a leading manufacturer of photocopiers and other image information products, cameras and other optical products, radiometric instruments, and planetariums. As Minolta has steadily cultivated new technologies and extended its established strengths into related areas, its operations have become increasingly diverse. Recently, the Company has been emphasizing the expansion of business in equipment and systems for inputting, outputting, and processing image-related information.

Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko opened its first overseas subsidiary, Minolta Corporation, in New York City in 1959. The company chose to name the subsidiary Minolta because of the popularity of its Minolta brand name. Shortly thereafter, in mid-1962, Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko changed its own name to Minolta Camera Co., Ltd. In the 1960s the company continued improving its camera line. It introduced the Uniomat, with a programmed shutter, in 1960, which led to fully programmed autoexposure in the Hi-Matic. In 1962 John Glenn chose the Hi-Matic to take the first photos of earth from space. In 1966 Minolta introduced its longest-running camera line, the SR-T series, which was produced continuously until 1981. These cameras featured through-the-lens light metering, using a patented light compensator to improve exposure in backlit photos. These new products made Minolta more competitive in Europe, so Minolta opened a European subsidiary, Minolta Camera Handelsgesellschaft, in Hamburg in 1965.

Diversification in the 1960s and 1970s

More importantly Minolta diversified. In 1960 the company entered the office copying market—an area that would prove as successful as cameras—when it produced the Copymaster. In 1962 it expanded into the data-retrieval field with the Minolta 401S microfilm reader-printer; and in 1965 the company opened its Mikawa plant, which produced the Minoltafax 41, the first copier that could reduce document size.

Minolta continued to develop its links with the U.S. space program, developing the Minolta Space Meter, a state-of-the-art technology for measuring exposures, for the first manned orbit of the moon, the 1968 Apollo 8 mission. The meter was used on nine more Apollo missions, including the mission that landed a man on the moon in 1969.

Minolta developed digital watches, video recorders, and pocket calculators in the 1970s, although not all the company’s innovations were successful. In 1975 a Minolta-developed office copier that used a complex, high-resolution technology was launched just as plain-paper copiers took over the industry. The company introduced a single-lens reflex camera using cartridge film in 1976, but despite a $2 million U.S. advertising campaign the product was unsuccessful.

Other camera developments were more successful. In 1977 Minolta produced one of the first “smart” cameras. Its XD Series cameras had the first system to override user aperture settings in poor lighting.

Minolta also advanced in other areas. The company entered the field of medical instruments in 1977 with the development of a fingertip pulse oximeter. Its MS-18 Planetarium, built in Tokyo, contained the first fully automated planetarium system, and its new photocopiers produced higher-quality images and included both enlarging and reducing capabilities. Those successes were particularly important because the camera market was saturated in Japan, Europe, and the United States.

Redefined Corporate Image in the 1980s

Minolta responded by redefining itself. It adopted a new logo in 1981 to reflect its broader purpose, and redefined its mission as processing light and images in all types of environments.

In 1983 Tashima, who had run the company since he founded it, left active management. Tashima relinquished the presidency to his son, Hideo Tashima, and became chairman of the board, the position he held when he died in 1985.

In the 1980s Minolta made advances in office-automation products, including copiers and a new word processor, but new camera technology brought the company the most attention. In 1985 Minolta unveiled its Maxxum, a SLR 35-millimeter camera with an autofocusing system. The Maxxum became a successful competitor to the less-expensive non-SLR cameras, such as Canon’s Snappy and AE-1. A U.S. advertising campaign costing over $15 million and technological advances that made the Maxxum the European Camera of the Year for 1985 aided its success. The Maxxum challenged Canon’s preeminence in the 35-millimeter market, but it was not long before Minolta’s Japanese competitors struck back with autofocus cameras of their own. Canon improved on the Maxxum by building the focusing system into the lens itself instead of housing it in the camera body with a mechanical link to the lens, as Minolta had done. Canon’s advance made focusing faster, but its camera was more expensive than the Maxxum.

Minolta entered the facsimile machine market with the introduction of several models in 1986. Meanwhile, the company’s planetariums became more sophisticated, first in 1984 with the launch of the Infinium—the first single sphere model that used lens projection—then in 1989 with the introduction of the Infinium, the first planetarium with a swing-type structure. Also developed by Minolta during this period were the first binoculars to offer continuous autofocusing, launched in 1990.

Difficult Times in the Early 1990s

Minolta suffered through a prolonged downturn in the early 1990s, with a number of developments contributing to the malaise. First, the camera market had become even more competitive in the late 1980s with the introduction of the first 35mm disposable camera, the QuickSnap from Fuji Photo Film, in 1987 and the first super-compact camera, Konica’s Big Mini, in 1989. More convenient and less expensive than the bulky, feature-packed cameras offered by Minolta, Canon, and the other major camera makers, the new smaller models quickly caught on—with Fuji seemingly coming out of nowhere to attain the top spot in cameras by 1992. During the same period, video cameras—or camcorders—became increasingly affordable and further eroded the sales of the traditional cameras Minolta specialized in.

A second factor in Minolta’s difficulties—although it affected the company’s financial results in only one year, 1992—was the lawsuit filed by Honeywell Inc. in 1987 against Minolta. Honeywell had won approval for several patents relating to autofocus technology, which it had intended to use in its own 35mm camera but eventually abandoned the effort in the mid-1970s. When autofocus SLR cameras gained great popularity in the mid-1980s, Honeywell prepared lawsuits against nearly all the major camera makers. Minolta eventually settled with Honeywell out of court in 1992, agreeing to pay ¥16.9 billion (U.S.$125.1 million) for infringing patent rights. After posting a net loss of ¥2 billion in 1991, Minolta lost ¥36.1 billion in 1992 thanks in part to the settlement.

The third factor in the overall decline was the prolonged Japanese recession of the early 1990s, which hurt domestic sales, and the appreciation of the yen, which hurt exports—about three-quarters of total sales in the early 1990s. Minolta’s net sales declined for three straight years, starting in 1992. Although the company’s losses narrowed each year, Minolta would not return to profitability until 1996. In the midst of these troubled years, in 1993 Hideo Tashima became chairman and Osamu Kanaya, who had served as president and COO of Minolta Corp., replaced Tashima as president.

Comeback Appeared Complete by 1996

To turn the company around, Tashima and Kanaya pursued three main objectives: moving production out of Japan to lessen the effects of the strong yen, developing a camera to compete in the compact category, and continuing to diversify the Minolta product line and derive a smaller percentage of revenues from cameras. The first objective of moving production overseas began to be implemented in 1992 with the establishment of Minolta Lorraine S.A., based in France. This facility was set up to make toner, lenses, and other components for imaging products; low-end copiers were then added to its assembly lines, with these products sold mostly in the European market. In 1994 production of plain-paper copiers and laser printers began in China through the Shilong Business Equipment Corporation subsidiary. That same year, Minolta entered into two joint ventures in China for the manufacture and sale of cameras and copiers.

In early 1995 Minolta successfully entered the compact camera category with the launch of the Riva Zoom 70W (known in Japan as the CAPIOS and in North America as the Freedom). Minolta also joined the cooperative development effort brought together by Eastman Kodak Co.—the others were Fuji, Canon, and Nikon—which created the Advanced Photo System (APS), an effort to revitalize the stagnant still photography market. APS offered easy loading and the ability to select from three photo sizes (4 inch by 6 inch, 4 inch by 7 inch, and a panoramic 4 inch by 10 inch) as pictures are taken. Minolta introduced a full line of APS cameras in early 1996 under the VECTIS brand. The VECTIS line included five compact models and a high-end SLR version that featured five interchangeable lenses. Later in 1996, Minolta launched a children’s camera tied to a new animated series.

The company’s desire for further diversification was highlighted in mid-1994 by the decision to change the company name to Minolta Co., Ltd., dropping “Camera.” The company soon showed a renewed commitment to innovative new product development. In 1995 Minolta launched the BC 3000 book copying system, the first product able to produce high quality copies of bound books. Also in 1995, digital cameras were added to the Minolta product family with the marketing of the RD-175, touted as “one of the smallest and lightest SLR-type digital cameras in the world.” Highlighting 1996 introductions were the CF 900 multifunction machine, able to copy, scan, and print in full color; and the Infinium 11, 11, and 11 planetariums, extensions of the Infinium line and “the world’s first projectors to enable planetarium visitors to experience virtual worlds.”

By 1996, Minolta had certainly begun to turn its fortunes around, although its profit margin of 1.2 percent was significantly lower than that of the mid-1980s. The diversification program seemed to be working; camera sales made up 44 percent of overall sales in 1991, but only 29.4 percent in 1996. Along with its revitalized reputation for innovation, Minolta appeared ready to be a major player in the high tech world of the 21st century.

Principal Subsidiaries

Minolta Camera Sales Co., Ltd.; Minolta Business Equipment Trading Co., Ltd.; Minolta Planetarium Co., Ltd.; Tokai Minolta Co., Ltd.; Kinki Minolta Co., Ltd.; Minolta Media Works Co., Ltd.; Aoi Camera Co., Ltd.; Sankei Seimitsu Kikai Co., Ltd.; Toyohashi Seimitsu Kogyo Co., Ltd.; Nara Minolta Seiko Co., Ltd.; Nankai Kougaku Kogyo Co., Ltd.; Okayama Minolta Seimitsu Co., Ltd.; Miki Minolta Kogyo Co., Ltd.; Fujikasei Co., Ltd.; Tokyo Minolta Camera Service Co., Ltd.; Minolta Hoken Daiko Co., Ltd.; Minolta Digital Studio Co., Ltd.; Dynax Trading Co., Ltd.; Minolta Logistics Co., Ltd.; Minolta Quality Service Co., Ltd.; Minolta Corporation (U.S.A.); Minolta Business Systems, Inc. (U.S.A.); Mohawk Marketing Corporation (U.S.A.); Astro-Tec. Mfg., Inc. (U.S.A.); Minolta Advance Technology Inc. (U.S.A.); Minolta Canada Inc.; Minolta Business Equipment (Canada), Ltd.; Minolta Copiadora do Amazonas Ltda. (Brazil); Minolta GmbH (Germany); Plankopie Vertriebsgesellschaft fur Kopiersysteme GmbH (Germany); Minolta Bürosysteme GmbH Nürnberg (Germany); Minolta Bürosysteme GmbH München (Germany); Minolta Bürosysteme GmbH Frankfurt (Germany); Minolta Bürosysteme GmbH Berlin (Germany); Minolta France S.A.; Repro Conseil S.A. (France); Minolta Lorraine S.A. (France); Minolta (UK) Limited; Minolta (Schweiz) AG (Switzerland); Minolta Austria Gesellschaft mbH; Hernitz Bürosysteme Gesellschaft mbH (Austria); Minolta Camera Benelux B.V. (Netherlands); Minolta Europe Finance B.V. (Netherlands); Minolta Business Equipment (Belgium) N.V.; Minolta Svenska AB (Sweden); Minolta Business Equipment Sweden AB; Minolta Italia S.r.l. (Italy); Minolta Portugal Limitada; Minolta Business Equipment Spain S.A.; Minolta Denmark A/S; Minolta Magyarorszag Kft. (Hungary); Minolta Polska Sp. zo. o. (Poland); Minolta spol. sr. o. (Czech Republic); Minolta Slovakia spol. sr. o.; Minolta Romania s.r.l.; Minolta Baltia (Lithuania); Minolta Bulgaria o.o.d.; Minolta Ljubljana d.o.o. (Slovenia); Minolta Zagreb d.o.o. (Croatia); Minolta Beograd d.o.o. (Serbia); Minolta Ukraine; Shanghai Minolta Optical Products Co., Ltd. (China); Wuhan Minolta Wiaic Office Automation Equipments Co., Ltd. (China); Minolta Hong Kong Limited; Minolta Industries (HK) Limited (Hong Kong); Minolta Singapore (PTE) Limited; Minolta Marketing (M) Sdn. Bhd. (Malaysia); Minolta Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.; Minolta Precision Engineering (M) Sdn. Bhd. (Malaysia); Minolta New Zealand Limited; Minolta Business Equipment Australia Pty. Ltd.

Minolta Co., Ltd.

views updated May 23 2018

Minolta Co., Ltd.

founded: 1928

Contact Information:

headquarters: 3-13, azuchi-machi 2-chome, chouo-ku
osaka 541 japan phone: 81-6-271-2251 fax: 81-6-266-1010 url: http://www.minolta.com

OVERVIEW

Minolta is perhaps best known as one of the leading camera companies in the world. However, most of its sales in fiscal 1996 (ended March 31, 1997) came from image information products such as copiers and fax machines. The company also has software development operations in Japan and the United States. In fiscal 1996, approximately one-third of Minolta's revenue came from sales in Japan, and two-thirds from the rest of the world.

COMPANY FINANCES

In fiscal 1996 Minolta recorded sales of 448,074 million yen, up 23 percent from the prior year. Net income rose 142 percent to 10,250 million yen. Earnings per share were 36.85 yen and the dividend was 5.5 yen, or a payout (the percentage of earnings paid out as dividends) of about 15 percent. On March 31, 1997, the company's market value in U.S. dollars was $1.67 billion.

HISTORY

Minolta began its corporate life in 1928 as NichiDoku Shashinki Sho-ten (Japan-German Camera Co.). It was founded by Kazuo Tashima, who would run the company for some 54 years. The firm was renamed Molta Goshi Kaisha in 1931. In 1933 the first camera bearing the Minolta name was introduced. Minolta, a word coined by Tashima, was a loose acronym of (M)achinery and (IN)struments (O)ptica(L) by (TA)shima. The company was reorganized in 1937 under the name Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko Kabushiki Kaisha (Chiyoda Optics and Fine Engineering, Ltd.).

Minolta's operations were destroyed near the end of World War II, but Tashima and his employees rebuilt the company's physical plant from salvaged parts dug out of bombed-out factories. Exports to the United States began in 1955, and the first overseas subsidiary, in the United States, was established in 1959. In 1960 Minolta entered the office copier market with its Copymaster. The company became the Minolta Camera Corporation in 1962. From the 1960s through the 1980s the company continued to diversify into related fields, such as facsimile machines. In the early 1990s the company underwent severe restructuring, and endured significant losses due to increased research and development expenses and tough price competition. In 1994, to reflect the broad range of the company's products beyond cameras, the company changed its name to Minolta Co., Ltd.

INFLUENCES

In the summer of 1928 Kazuo Tashima, the son of a Japanese export-import merchant, was representing his father as part of a Japanese trade mission to Europe and the Middle East. While touring a high-grade optics factory in Paris, Tashima decided that he could make money producing the same equipment in Japan. Both his father and the Japanese government disapproved of the idea, but Tashima persisted. He borrowed money from the chief clerk at his father's company and founded NichiDoku that November.

Both the company's name and its early success reflected its reliance on German optics technology, the world's best. The access to German technology came from two Germans Tashima took on as partners, Willy Heilemann and Billy Neumann. In 1929 the company began producing the Nifcalette camera, which featured a German-made lens and shutter. Within three months the firm was producing 100 cameras a month. The company followed up on this success with the 1934 introduction of the Minolta Vest, the first of its products to become popular outside Japan. In 1937 Tashima became the first Japanese camera manufacturer to develop a twin-lens reflex camera, the Minoltaflex, which was based on the German Rolleiflex.

FAST FACTS: About Minolta Co., Ltd.

Ownership: Minolta is a publicly owned corporation whose shares are traded on the Osaka, Tokyo, Nagoya, Frankfurt, and Dusseldorf Stock Exchanges.

Officers: Hideo Tashima, Chmn.; Osamu Kanaya, Pres.

Employees: 4,658

Principal Subsidiary Companies: Minolta's operating subsidiaries include Minolta Corporation (USA).

Chief Competitors: Minolta's competitors in the image information and optical products segments include: Canon; Eastman Kodak; Fuji Photo; and Nikon.

CHRONOLOGY: Key Dates for Minolta Co., Ltd.

1928:: Founded as Nichi-Doku Shashinki Sho-ten
1931:: Company is renamed Molta Goshi Kaisha
1933:: Minolta name is first used
1937:: Company is reorganized; produces first Japanese camera with twin lens
1955:: Begins exporting to the United States
1958:: Minolta "spy camera" is offered in Sears catalog
1959:: Establishes first overseas subsidiary
1960:: Begins producing copiers
1962:: Becomes Minolta Camera Corporation
1974:: Introduces a plain paper copier
1980:: Introduces the Minolta EP 710—the first copier that could both enlarge and reduce documents
1985:: Introduces the Maxuum—the first camera with an internal focusing system
1994:: Changes name to Minolta Co., Ltd.

The imperialism of Japan in the 1930s initially had a positive impact on Tashima's company. Chiyoda Optical, as the company was now called, began producing high-powered binoculars and other optical instruments for the Japanese military. During World War II the company suspended all commercial production and concentrated exclusively on making optical instruments for the war effort. Employment rose from 1,000 to 4,000. The end of the war brought disaster, however, as Allied bombers destroyed much of Osaka and the company's factories along with it.

In the early postwar period, the U.S. military presence in Japan became a positive factor for the company. The Allied Occupation, headed by Douglas MacArthur, encouraged the sale of Japanese cameras to U.S. servicemen in Japan. The soldiers took their cameras home and began using them in the United States.

A further boost came during the Korean War, when U.S. photographers assigned to cover the conflict began to use Japanese cameras. The photographers claimed the cameras were superior to the Leicas they were accustomed to using. Although many of the cameras used by both the servicemen and photographers were made by Minolta's competitors, the reputation of the Japanese camera industry had solidified, which would serve Minolta well as it began to export to the U.S. market in the mid-1950s.

Minolta's stature in the United States rose dramatically in the late 1950s and 1960s as a result of a series of coups. In 1958 it persuaded Sears, Roebuck & Co. to drop a small German camera, the Minox, from its mail-order catalog, and replace it with the Minolta 16 "spy camera." In 1960 Minolta introduced the Uniomat, with a programmed shutter; this offering soon led to fully programmed auto-exposure in another innovative Minolta camera, the Hi-Matic.

In the 1970s Minolta made a series of innovations in copying machines that enabled it to diversify its product line. In 1974 it introduced the EG 101, an electro-graphic copier which used a lightly coated paper that felt much like ordinary paper. The EG 101 was the first inexpensive copier to offer the advantages of plain-paper copiers. In 1978 Minolta introduced the Electrographic 301, the first copier to use fiber-optics; the Minolta EP 710, introduced in 1980, was the first copier that could both reduce and enlarge documents.

Meanwhile, Minolta's camera business seesawed in the 1970s and 1980s as camera companies leapfrogged one another with new technology. In 1976 Canon took the lead with its AE-1, the first 35mm range-finder camera with an electronically controlled exposure system. The relatively light and easy-to-use AE-1 enabled Canon to replace Minolta as the best-selling camera in the United States. By 1985 Minolta's share of the U.S. market for 35mm cameras slipped from 30 percent to 20 percent, while Canon's rose to 28 percent. That year, however, Minolta introduced the Maxuum, the world's most automatic camera and the first SLR camera with an internal auto-focusing system. The system received rave reviews, and within a year Minolta had regained 30 percent of the U.S. 35mm market, while Canon's dipped to 22 percent.

Minolta's success had a price tag, however. First, the National Association of State Attorneys General accused the company of illegally setting prices for the Maxuum in the marketplace, and ordered it to give significant rebates to customers who had paid the full retail price. Second, Honeywell of the United States accused Minolta of patent infringement in developing the Maxuum. In the early 1990s Minolta paid Honeywell in excess of $125 million to settle this suit.

CURRENT TRENDS

The early 1990s were difficult years for Minolta. In 1991 the company recorded a loss because of rising research and development (R&D) expenses and price competition. Despite a reorganization and cost-cutting measures, the loss grew dramatically in 1992. More bad news came in 1994, when sliding demand caused the company to suspend production and sales of video cameras for the Japanese market. The market for traditional SLR cameras also became saturated. Indeed, Minolta lost money in every year from 1991 to 1995, and the total number of employees fell from 6,608 to 5,450. Further cuts in head count, as well as the movement of manufacturing facilities outside of Japan, helped Minolta become profitable again in 1996.

PRODUCTS

In 1996 Minolta introduced its VECTIS line of Advanced Photo System (APS) products for the 35mm photography market. The Advanced Photo System was developed with four other large camera companies—Canon, Eastman Kodak, Fuji Photo, and Nikon—in an unusual display of industry cooperation. The system was intended to spur lackluster photography sales and counter competition from products in the computer industry. The cameras were small and light, which made them convenient to carry. Photographs could be taken in three sizes in the same roll. According to some observers, however, the introduction of Advanced Photo System products was marred by production problems and poor packaging, as well as inaccurate estimates of demand.

MINOLTA SHOOTS THE EARTH

In February 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. Although NASA had not originally planned for a camera to be carried into space, a few days before his historic flight, Glenn purchased a Minolta Hi-matic to bring with him. Initially, Glenn bought seven different cameras and compared them feature by feature. However, the Hi-matic's easy to use controls, necessary with heavy gloves, made for an effortless decision by Glenn. Following the flight, Glenn's photographs from space appeared in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Within a week, the price of Minolta Camera Co., Ltd. stock on the Tokyo exchange had nearly doubled. Later, Minolta would develop the Minolta Space Meter, a light meter specifically designed for the U.S. space program, which would be used on all manned Apollo missions, including the first moon landing in 1969.

GLOBAL PRESENCE

Minolta operates manufacturing subsidiaries in the United States, Germany, France, and Malaysia. In the mid-1990s it began producing both cameras and copiers in China. In 1996, about 68 percent of the company's sales came from countries outside Japan.