Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/02/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]In a message dated 98-02-16 21:03:04 EST, Paul writes: << Anyway, all the insignificant details aside, the gentleman being interviewed related how "...Canon, the photocopier company, had a motto that was 'kill Leica'" as a motivator in the upper echelons of the company. He then went on to say that Leica is now a small company with sales in the millions while Canon has gone on to become a corporate giant with sales in the billions. >> Paul, while it is true that Leica sales are small compared to the Canon over-all sales of printers, copy machines, etc and cameras - Leica is only a small division of the Swiss conglomerate that Sheidheiny merged with the other Swiss optical company (Wild). The Swiss owned company made their billions originally in cement manufacturing and the camera section lost money until they recently went public and sold shares, and therby boostied the value of their stock on the open market. In other words - Canon is basically a film & paper copier company and Leica is now an independent camera & optical conglom'. that is really Swiss owned with plants in Germany, Portugal, Canada and for some reason - no longer Japan. As far as I know, Canon is 100% Japanese. Marvin Moss