[Company analysis] Fujifilm Holdings Corporation (富士フイルムホールディングス)

「Fujifilm Holdings Corporation (富士フイルムホールディングス)」 is a holding company that owns「Fuji Film(富士フィルム)」and「Fuji Xerox(富士ゼロックス)」. In film market,「Fuji Film」was very famous company and even it could be to comparable with「Kodak」, a legendary film manufacturer. But now, because of digital cameras and smartphones, there is no longer any competition between both companies. As for「Fuji Xerox」this is a company which was co-founded by「Fuji Film」and「Xerox」in 1962, and have sold copiers in the Asia-Pacific area. The number of consolidated employees is approximately 31,844.

 

1. Company Profile

2. Summary and Features

3. Major Business

4. Financial Information

 

 

 

1. Company Profile

 

※Unit is JPY million, as of 2019

Company name	Fujifilm Holdings Corporation
Company name (Japanese)	富士フイルムホールディングス
Date of establishment	1934
Headquarters location	〒107-0052  東京都港区赤坂9-7-3
Capital	40000
Consolidated sales	2,431,489
Consolidated operating profit	209,827
Consolidated total assets	3,414,692
Consolidated capital	2,244,841
Capital adequacy ratio	65.7%
Consolidated number of employees	31,844

 

 

 

2. Summary and Features

 
In 1934, to producing photographic film in Japan domestic, 「Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd.(富士写真フイルム株式会社)」 was established and spun off from the photography business of「Dainippon Celluloid(大日本セルロイド)」, the predecessor of the current「Daisel(ダイセル)」. Later,「Fuji Film」entered into a business alliance with the British company「Xerox」in 1962 to establish Fuji Xerox, a copier maker. 

As of October 1, 2006, this group company adopted a holding company system, and changed their securities code classification into chemical company. As the photographic materials market shrank due to the progress of digitization, 「Fuji Film」decided to change its business. Now this company is aggressively developing new businesses by applying the chemical synthesis-related technologies it has accumulated in photographic film manufacturing. So, 「Fujifilm」entered to the fields of liquid display materials, pharmaceuticals, functional cosmetics, and foods. As a result, they were able to reduce the ratio of color film sales to only 1% based on March 2011.

Therefore, Fujifilm's main business is no longer "film". In the camera-related business, the profit was 340 billion yen, less than 15% of the total. Conversely, the combined sales of the document business (such as office printers) and the information business (medical and industrial equipment) totaled 2 trillion yen, and sales of both businesses accounted for more than 85% of the total.

Actually,「Fuji Film」relied on the film business for more than 50% of sales until FY2000. On that time, as digitalization progressed, the management status of Fuji Film deteriorated, and the number of employees was reduced by about 5,000 twice in 2005 and 2009. Besides, Fujifilm's production facilities and sales organization, which had been deployed worldwide, were significantly reduced, and business diversification was carried out in the three fields of "health", "high-performance materials" and "documents" As a result, their sales become dobuled compare to FY2000.

The interesting part, however, the legendary film manufacturer「Kodak」declared bankruptcy in 2012. the above success of「Fuji Film」and the failure of「Kodak」were caused by their different market forecasting ability and attitude toward uncerntain future. In fact, the digital camera that reduce film market significantly was developed by「Kodak」in 1975.

In 1981,「Kodak」recognized this digital camera will be a threat to the film market by their internal report, so they gave up commercializing it. In addition, their business strategy were obsessed by the competition with「Fuji Film」and they invested management resources to wining competition such as "Super 301" not for overcoming the risk of digitalization. Even in 2000, when the analog film market reached its peak scale, and at the time of market shrinking  began,「Kodak」misjudged on the trend of digitalization. Even they very naively thought, the loss caused by digitalization could be recovered by Chinese market. And that was wrong.

On the other hand, 「Fuji Film」had decided to take the challenge of the digital camera business and since the 1980's, they launched the world's first digital camera, knowing that it would pose a risk to the existing film market. So It is said that the difference in market forecasting ability and attitude toward uncerntain future led to the result of today's「Fuji Film」and「Kodak」.

 

 

 

3. Major Business

 

■ Imaging solution
Photo imaging, optical and electronic imaging related

■ Healthcare & Materials Solutions
Healthcare, high-performance materials, graphic systems / inkjet, recording media

■ Document Solutions 

 

 

 

4. Financial information

 

※Unit is JPY million

		2016	2017	2018
Consolidated sales		2,322,163	2,433,365	2,431,489
Consolidated operating profit		172,281	130,679	209,827
Consolidated total assets		3,533,189	3,492,940	3,414,692
Consolidated net assets		2,268,058	2,298,706	2,244,841
Breakdown of sales	Imaging solution	341,744	382,961	386,914
	Healthcare & Materials solution	899,543	1,002,602	1,038,966
	Document solution	1,080,876	1,047,802	1,005,609