Olympus Is Planning to Sell Camera and Imaging Department to JIP

• Olympus says smartphone photography has thrown the profitability of its digital cameras department out of the window.
• The historic business will be sold to JIP, who will try to make it leaner and more efficient.
• Sales, servicing, and marketing will continue to operate until the end of 2020.

Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) is going to welcome another historic business under its umbrella, and this time, it will be the Olympus digital cameras department. As the Japanese camera maker announced today, they are planning to sign a legally-binding agreement for the transaction on September 30, 2020, but all details have been agreed upon already. JIP will acquire the entire Olympus Imaging business, all shares, funds, and operational resources that belong to the department. This closes a chapter that began in 1936 when Olympus introduced its first camera, the “Semi-Olympus I,” which sported the company’s signature “Zuiko” lens.

Olympus became a globally successful brand in the field, but many things changed in recent decades, most notably the arrival of smartphones. Olympus states that they tried to implement highly efficient production systems and focus on high-profit and pro-rage cameras and exchangeable lenses to respond to the rapidly changing landscape. Simply put, almost nobody buys cheaper digital cameras anymore as everyone uses a smartphone to take pictures. As smartphone imaging systems became better, the quality differences got small enough for amateur photographers not to care anymore. So, Olympus and other digital camera makers felt the overwhelming pressure of a shrinking market.

Despite all that the Japanese tried to do to keep the business afloat, they recorded three consecutive fiscal year losses between 2017 and 2020, so they ran out of feasible options and ways to get back. Olympus assured its customers that the sale to JIP wouldn’t affect the service and marketing departments, at least not until the end of the year. From then on, JIP may implement changes to make the brand more streamlined and versatile, as they did with the VAIO division when they bought from Sony in 2014. However, this didn’t work out excellently, as VAIO is not the first to come to the consumer’s mind when looking for a new laptop in 2020.

Olympus will now focus on the still profitable Medical, Life Science, Industrial, and Various Optics Solutions departments, so the brand will have to say goodbye to the “consumer electronics” market in general. The company has been hit with five individual economic and bribery scandals in the past decade, resulting in having to pay hundreds of millions of USD in fines. This certainly didn’t help those at the helm steer the firm to safety during the storm that was brought by the rise of smartphone photography, and this is why they’re among the first of the “big players” to quit the business.