For years, Japan's Fujifilm pivoted away from its legacy camera business to focus on healthcare. But thanks in large part to the TikTok crowd, its retro-themed X100 digital cameras are now a roaring success, boosting its bottom line.
Fujifilm is struggling to meet demand for the $1,599 camera, prized by young 20-something social media fans for its looks and high-end functions.
The X100V model was so popular that in the fiscal year ended in March, it was the imaging division, which includes cameras, that was the biggest contributor to the company's record-high profit - the unit accounted for 37% of operating profit in fiscal 2023, versus 27% the year before.
After it sold out last year, the company increased production in China to double the launch volume for the VI that debuted in March, said Yujiro Igarashi, manager of Fujifilm's professional imaging group. He declined to give details about the production increase, or unit sales.
"We found that the orders far exceeded our forecast," Igarashi said. "In that sense, I was surprised that although we doubled our preparations, it still came up short."
Founded 90 years ago, Fujifilm competed against film industry leader Kodak for decades before finally overtaking it in sales in 2001. But the triumph proved short-lived, as the film industry soon collapsed and digital cameras became a standard feature in mobile phones.
To survive, Fujifilm tapped its expertise in film chemicals to shift into healthcare applications, a strategy also adopted by domestic competitors Canon and Olympus. Fujifilm didn't give up on its cameras, but it cut 5,000 jobs in its film division and moved most production to China the following year.
During the COVID years, Fujifilm doubled down on antiviral pills and vaccine operations, but now the cameras have put it back into the spotlight.
The company projects imaging sales growth to slow to 2.2% in fiscal 2024 from 14.5%, while operating profits in the segment are expected to dip 1.9%, estimates analysts say are conservative at best.
"We see downside risk to guidance for healthcare and business innovation, but major upside for imaging," wrote Jefferies analyst Masahiro Nakanomyo in a June 6 report.
SAY CHEESE
The X100 was born in 2011 in an attempt to rescue Fujifilm's professional grade camera division, but its appeal is rooted in nostalgia, camera enthusiasts say.
"The look of it was pretty revolutionary, which is ironic, because it's just mimicking a film camera," said Mark Condon, founder of the camera equipment site Shotkit.
A key concept in retro tech is "friction", where the user is joined with the product through physical touch and interaction, according to Tokyo-based culture writer W David Marx.
"Smartphones make it so easy to take photos that photos have been devalued," said Marx, author of "Status and Culture".
"By having physical cameras again, and having to develop film etc, it adds back friction, which adds back a sense of value to casual photo taking."
As travel restarted after the pandemic, demand for cameras shot up, and influencers on Instagram, TikTok and other social media sites turned the X100 into a status symbol.
"It is important to have a good looking camera that inspires you to want to take it out and shoot with it," said Benjamin Lee, who goes by @itchban on TikTok where he has more than 600,000 followers. "The X100 series is basically a fashion accessory you wear, on top of being a great camera."
Availability remains a problem.
Second-hand X100s sell for multiples of their list price on auction sites and there are online message boards for fans waiting for orders.
Fujifilm chief executive Teiichi Goto hinted last month he was happy to keep supply tight, pointing to Germany's Leica brand cameras as a model for maintaining premium value.
"It would be quite unfortunate to manufacture too much and lower the price," Goto said at the company's year-end earnings presentation on May 9.
But the long waitlists and steep prices may drive customers to competitors, such as Canon's G7X and Ricoh's GR series, influencer Lee said. This week, Ricoh also announced the launch of its first film camera in about 20 years, the Pentax 17.
Imaging group manager Igarashi acknowledged that production volumes were a hurdle, but the design and complexity of the X100 make it hard to manufacture at scale.
"We're trying really hard to increase the number of people, the number of production lines, and so on, but it's not taking off as quickly as you would think," he said.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
17 Comments
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Fighto!
Good for Fuji Film. Hopefully digital cameras make a massive comeback. Real cameras are infinitely better quality than cellphone ones.
TokyoLiving
Excellent news..
bass4funk
I prefer Sony.
djv124
Forgot about stocking cameras, how about Fujifilm ramps up production of cheki film for their cheki cameras? You can't buy them anywhere in stores in Japan. The only place you can find cheki film these days is Amazon and there, a bunch of people gobble up the rare cheki film sold at stores as soon as the cheki film are put out on the shelves and then resell at a much higher price. I think Fujifilm needs to step their game up and actually put out the film before worrying about cameras....
Ramsey's Kitchen
Good for Fuji Film. Hopefully digital cameras make a massive comeback. Real cameras are infinitely better quality than cellphone ones.
I'll agree with that.
itsonlyrocknroll
X100VI is my go to camera, fit into my bag, and is straightforward to operate with great results.
https://fujifilm-x.com/ja-jp/products/cameras/x100vi/
wallace
After my mirrorless camera broke several years ago my go-to camera is my smartphone, even used for my business.
kohakuebisu
I got a used X100 about a year after it came out. It got rave reviews on a camera forum called DP Review. It was the first digital camera to be retro styled with lots of physical dials for setting exposure, and had an at-the-time big sensor with a unique colour detecting tech (Fuji call it "X Trans") that produced really good image quality without Photoshop. Another old-school semi-innovation was it having a fixed lens, so kind of pure and no messing about with lenses. At the time, the jpegs it produced , esp the black and white ones, were stunning. Note that the photo above is of a cabinet of what look like old film-era Fuji cameras and none of Fuji's X series cameras can be seen.
I now seem to work all the time, but back when I didn't, I had a lot of fun with X100. I'll have to get a wireless card and start using it again.
Fuji's X series were a big hit before Tiktok, so that's why I wrote the above. I don't have one, but I suspect the greatest digital camera of all time is actually a Sony one called the RX100. It produces v high quality photos but (crucially) fits in your pocket. Even very old ones hold their value second hand.
wanderlust
Nikon produced their own retro model with 'friction', the Nikon Df back in 2013. It looked like an old-fashioned SLR camera with metal dials and buttons, but had digital features and performance. Too bad it got lost in all of the other models being produced at the time.
Antiquesaving
If I want a picture of an outdoors sales show, the crowd at the show the display, etc... my smartphone will do, if I am taking a picture of a large item, be it a large painting or a Tansu (cabinet) again a smartphone is adequate!
But forget it if I am trying to take a photo of smaller objects, a smartphone can never show the details that a SLR or good DSLR can.
Yes I still use my 50 year old Flim camera on certain occasions and my DSLR is the same brand and I have a large collection of high quality lenses that fit both my SLR film camera and my DSLR and there is no way a smartphone or a single lens digital camera can even come close to the quality or details that the proper lens use on an SLR or DSLR can achieve!
As much as I do like the Fuji, I long ago committed to a different brand and to change now would require buying all new lenses from macro, wide-angle, to 1000mm telephoto and that would be cost prohibitive!
But nice to see the younger generation embracing something more than just letting the machine do all the work for them.
Antiquesaving
Yes I noticed that!
It seems a regular thing, articles about something but never actually showing a photo that is of the person or object that is the subject of the article!
How difficult would it have been to get a photo of the product to use in the article.
All they had to do is ask Fuji their publishing department would have gladly sent of a few!
NCIS Reruns
After several Olympus film and digital models I decided that switching multiple lenses had become a burden, weight-wise and went with the lightweight Canon G-series, which as the article notes competes with the Fujifilm X100 series. Since 2022 I've been enjoying a Fujifilm model with four lenses, including two zoom lenses, plus a 16mm wide angle and tiny 27mm pancake model, and am again reminded how much fun digital photography can be. The color renditions are gorgeous: blue skies, natural reds and bright yellows. Since digital technology is constantly improving, six or seven years is about the longest you can expect to use any model, but fortunately the lenses are upward compatible. I'm very impressed with smartphone cameras too, but walking around Tokyo with a Japanese camera around my neck I sense I'm being accorded preferential treatment as a tourist. (It's almost like wearing a disguise.)
itsonlyrocknroll
Antiquesaving, I agree, I can whip out my smartphone and in seconds take that "spur-of-the-moment".
My X100VI can achieve and capture a whole lot more, once one has mastered it capabilities.
Its expensive, I choked out close to 400.000 yen.
However I have been able to capture astonishing family and holiday moments.
With adobe premier pro, create exceptional clips and photo montages.
opheliajadefeldt
I have used a Nikon 'Film' camera for many years, but I also have a small Pentax digital one to. The film camera is by far the best. I do not have a smart phone or any other phone that takes films, but having compared so many pictures on all types, the film is still the best.
piskian
@djv124
Try Don Quixote.
piskian
Was lucky enough to get a few genba kontaku (site supervisor) tough 35mm cameras back in the day.
Fujifilm K-28 and K-35 were pretty good.
Still keeping a couple of Instax cameras going for the kids.
China production,though?
Seriously?
smithinjapan
I was big into photography and developing up to the time I came to Japan. Once I did, I could not find a dark room that was useable anywhere. Was told there were some you could rent in big cities like Osaka, but the cost was phenomenal, and then you couldn't get the raw film or the equipment to process it if the darkroom didn't have it all on hand.