Reading mode: Light Dark

Who's bigger Canon or Nikon?

  • Thread starter Thread starter jrg
  • Start date Start date
Go to last post
J

jrg

Guest
Who's bigger as a company, Canon or Nikon? Canon, right? And comparing sizes like planets, where do they stand in relation to Sony and Panasonic?
 
I think you may be better looking in the Financial Times for the answer, rather than here. Maybe?
 
Search Bloomberg, get market capitalization values. According to their Japanese listings:

Canon's market cap is at ¥4.4 trillion

Nikon's is ¥650 billion

Sony Corp is ¥1.7 trillion (excl. financial)

Panasonic is ¥2.7 trillion

Olympus is ¥1.1 trillion

Fujifilm is ¥1.4 trillion

Ricoh is ¥924 billion

Samsung is um... 215 trillion Korean Won (=¥21 trillion)

Of course this only tells you the worth of their stocks in public circulation. Private shareholdings are not included.

Short answer is: everyone is pretty big compared to Nikon. Except Casio, which has a marcap of ¥388 billion.
 
Apple and Samsung dwarf both of them by orders of magnitude.

i.e. Apple is 10 times the size of Canon by MKTCAP
 
Last edited:
Interesting. Everybody says how gigantic a company Ricoh is but the market value apparently isn't all that high. Do the private holders have a large portion?
 
samfan said:
Interesting. Everybody says how gigantic a company Ricoh is but the market value apparently isn't all that high. Do the private holders have a large portion?
Click to expand...
Sorry I had to look it up again and I'm wrong, it does include private stockholdings. The 'market' part of calculating its capitalization comes from multiplying the current stock price by the total shares, even non-public shares (though in actual fact these preferential stock probably have a much different value from the market price).
 
Last edited:
I ask as OP because I'm an Olympus shooter and am always concerned about their fate. They seem like part of the "little guys".
 
jrg said:
I ask as OP because I'm an Olympus shooter and am always concerned about their fate. They seem like part of the "little guys".
Click to expand...
Bear in mind a lot of them do other stuff. Nikon is AFAIK almost solely cameras, whereas canon does printers and cinema stuff etc.

Olympus has a very large medical imaging division (ever get a colonoscopy and it might be an olympus you have inside you), sony and panasonic obviously have large consumer electronics areas, as well as pro video sections. Samsung is just a giant that is slowly trying to chase after apple, not sure it will ever become one of "the big four" (or unless they kick apple out I guess the big 5).
 
Charles Wass said:
Charles Wass said:
. Nikon is AFAIK almost solely cameras
Click to expand...
Nikon also make the equipment used for making silicon chips.
Click to expand...
Fair enough. I guess not really the type of thing they advertise on their website. If you have the few billion needed to do chip fabrication you probably already know whose out there.

Any idea who they supply? Kinda curious.
 
quezra said:
Search Bloomberg, get market capitalization values.
Click to expand...

When I think of a company's "size", I think of their annual revenue, not their market cap, and I don't think I'm out of step with the norm on that. Obviously, market cap is a useful measure of a company's financial power, which is a kind of bigness, but annual revenue is the figure I see mostly used to describe a company's size, or the scope of a market or business line.

I don't have the annual revenue figures on hand, but based on past history, a very rough guess is:

Nikon is probably in the USD 10-12b range.

Olympus is likely roughly the same as Nikon.

Ricoh roughly 2-3x as large as Nikon/Olympus.

Canon would likely be 5-7X larger.

Sony would be larger still, maybe 1.5X the size of Canon.

Panasonic a bit larger than Sony.

Samsung twice again as large at upwards of USD 200b.

Again, just top-of-head guesses based on recent past history.
 
I'm totally shocked that Samsung's bigger than Sony and Panasonic. I don't know why, Samsung has a huge presence here in Norway.
 
jrg said:
I'm totally shocked that Samsung's bigger than Sony and Panasonic. I don't know why, Samsung has a huge presence here in Norway.
Click to expand...
They are hugely dominant in the smartphone (and tablet to a possibly slightly lesser degree) business which I imagine plays the largest part in it.
 
Eamon Hickey said:
quezra said:
Search Bloomberg, get market capitalization values.
Click to expand...
When I think of a company's "size", I think of their annual revenue, not their market cap, and I don't think I'm out of step with the norm on that. Obviously, market cap is a useful measure of a company's financial power, which is a kind of bigness, but annual revenue is the figure I see mostly used to describe a company's size, or the scope of a market or business line.

I don't have the annual revenue figures on hand, but based on past history, a very rough guess is:

Nikon is probably in the USD 10-12b range.
Click to expand...
Don't forget that Nikon is part of the Mitsubishi group, which might skew their numbers quite a bit.

peripheralfocus said:
Olympus is likely roughly the same as Nikon.

Ricoh roughly 2-3x as large as Nikon/Olympus.

Canon would likely be 5-7X larger.

Sony would be larger still, maybe 1.5X the size of Canon.

Panasonic a bit larger than Sony.

Samsung twice again as large at upwards of USD 200b.

Again, just top-of-head guesses based on recent past history.
Click to expand...
 
Bigger is relative as companies have many interests beyond photography. For instance Canon has their office division, Nikon has an eyeware division, Olympus a medical division, Panasonic home electronics, Sony just about everything, etc.

Don't think there's any way to say which company's PHOTOGRAPHY division is the biggest.
 
jrg said:
Who's bigger as a company, Canon or Nikon? Canon, right? And comparing sizes like planets, where do they stand in relation to Sony and Panasonic?
Click to expand...
Iis there a point to your measurebaiting?
 
He just wants everyone to do his research for him, instead of going to the trouble of checking the info in the top finance papers, online sources such as Bloomberg, etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top