#2 on the US market is known for innovation and quality
(by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer)

In the new world order of digital cameras, since film faded away, Canon has established itself as pretty much the undisputed Number One. By 2005, Canon was the #2 seller of digital cameras in the United States, after Kodak, and sold five to six million digicams in the US, quite an accomplishment considering that Canon was not concentrating on the low-end of the market. Worldwide, Canon also was the number two seller of digital cameras. By 2007, Canon was the #1 worldwide, both in digital SLRs and in compacts, capturing 43% marketshare in digital SLRs (barely beating out Nikon) and 19% in the overall digital camera markt worldwide (per IDC stats in front of Sony, Kodak, Samsung, Nikon and Olmpus, in that order).

Canon was founded in 1937 and has its headquarters in Tokyo. In 2005, Canon Group, a global multimedia corporation, had over 108,000 employees and sales of over US$33 billion. Canon makes business machines, optical and other products, and cameras. Canon is a very innovative company as evidenced by the fact that it consistently ranks in the top five companies receiving the most patents in the US. Canon's stated corporate philosophyis kyosei which roughly translates into "living and working together for the common good."

In the digital camera area, Canon makes the highly regarded line of EOS digital SLR cameras as well as the popular PowerShot compact digital cameras. Part of the PowerShot lineup are the ultra-compact Digital ELPH cameras that almost single-handedly defined an ever more popular class of small and very thin cameras that fit into any pocket. In the digital SLR arena, Canon was the first to break the US$1,000 barrier with its Digital Rebel -- a pioneering effort that "broke the dam" and was quickly followed by lower priced digital SLRs from other camera manufacturers and by Canon itself with the increasingly more powerful Digital Rebel XT.

Canon cameras are famous for their quality and use of advanced technology, most of which stems from Canon's own research. An example is the DIGIC Imaging Processor that was developed by Canon as sort of a comprehensive, integratded "brain" of Canon digital cameras.

Canon's forecast for its 2006 digital camera sales was 20 million units, up from about 17 million units in 2005. In fact, they reached almost 25 million by 2007.