Other notable investments by JIP include Toyota’s CAD/CAM software division, NEC’s ISP subsidiary, as well as ITX Corporation, which was previously owned by…wait for it…Olympus! That’s right, JIP and Olympus have had a past, and it was not pretty.
For example, when Sony wanted to get rid of its VAIO PC division, it sold it off to JIP, which then carved it out into a separate company.
So why shouldn’t we have any faith in JIP taking over Olympus Imaging and making it successful? Well, just take a look at JIP’s investment portfolio, which includes many divisions that were transitioned as separate companies. Sadly, I personally don’t see any other outcome out of this announcement…Į-M5 + OLYMPUS M.45mm F1.8 45mm, ISO 200, 1 sec, f/8.0 The worst-case scenario, is JIP splitting up what’s left of Olympus Imaging and selling it off before it bleeds even further. There is no way JIP is going to pump a ton of cash into a dying company that has basically gotten obliterated by the smartphone industry. Without any serious product development and innovation that requires a lot of R&D funding, Olympus Imaging is not going to survive. The likely outcome of this takeover is going to be a few more years for the Olympus camera brand to live before it eventually dies off and disappears completely. While the company has stated that JIP might make Olympus Imaging “more compact, efficient and agile”, and has used such words as “continuous growth”, I don’t see how a financial services company that has no expertise in the camera industry can somehow make Olympus Imaging profitable and successful again. However, it is pretty clear that the game is over for Olympus Imaging – the division that dates all the way back to 1936. We have written a number of articles on the rise of the smartphone and the decline of the camera industry, and we have even given our thoughts on how camera companies can survive the smartphone. Without a doubt, this is truly sad and terrible news, which shows just how badly the camera industry has been hurt in the past few years. Olympus OM-D E-M5, the camera I used to own and enjoy shooting with And with the COVID 19 pandemic that has really hurt the camera industry, it is clear that the company is doing what it can to survive as a business. With its continuous losses in the past few years thanks to serious declines of camera sales (thanks to the rise of the smartphone), Olympus is basically leaving the camera industry, letting a third party manage its camera business. If you have not yet heard the news, today Olympus made an announcement that it is going to sell its camera division to Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) by the end of 2020.
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