News & Activities
Canon’s 45th Anniversary News Release
Aug 14, 2009
This year sees the 45th Anniversary of Canon calculator. Canon’s technologies have been emerged providing state-of-the-art solutions to end users since 1964; therefore Canon has attained a top market share over these 45 years.
Canon produced the world’s first 10 key calculator "Canola 130" in 1964 and the world’s first portable printing calculator "Pocketronic" in 1971. At that time, calculator was the most advanced business appliance in electronic industry. From then onwards, Canon has successfully developed and improved calculator business.
“Cameras in the right hand, business machines in the left” – this slogan was used by Canon’s President Takashi Mitarai in 1967. This point has been proven as 2 years later; the name was changed from Canon Camera Co. Inc to Canon Inc. As research was an important aspect, many R&D centers were opened in Japan, Europe and America.
In order to keep our prices competitive and keep production costs to minimum, Canon calculator Group shifted its production away from the "AMI" plant in Japan, over to Taiwan vendors in 1986. Production today, is mainly carried out in the Mainland China.
In 1991, to make business operations more cost-efficient, Canon calculator group decided to move the headquarter from Japan to Hong Kong. Thus, CEBM (HK) was established and started operation on July 1st 1992.
45 years from its debut, Canon has grasped the 2nd position in the market. The calculator business is still alive, not just a legacy from the history. In order to ensure that the calculator business is moving forward with the next generation, we have launched the environmental calculator series which reaffirm Canon’s commitment to minimize the environmental impact. This has been realized with the launch of the stylish, design-led “X Mark I” calculator that is fully solar powered, requiring no batteries and is constructed using plastics from recycled Canon Prism Lenses.
Mr. Masunaga, MD of Canon Electronic Business Machines HK, says “X Mark I signifies our 45 years of history by incorporating the first Canon calculator onto the back of this limited edition calculator. With the fusing of the Canola 130 model onto the X Mark I, we have created a nice synergy and contrast.”
As the Canon technology comes from the calculator and Canon will continue to introduce new products into the market.
“The future development of the calculator, Canon, as the responsible manufacturer uses a lot of effort in putting intelligence into the products to enhance the value and the convenience for the end-users. This helps to upgrade the market of calculators to a higher level.”