With Japan producing 14 percent of the world’s electronics and manufacturing equipment, the shock waves from the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and ongoing nuclear crisis are still being felt two months later in the photography industry.
Camera front-runners such as Canon, Nikon and Sony had dozens of plants based near the earthquake epicenter in northern Japan, producing LCD screens, semiconductors, imaging sensors, optical lens, Flash memory cards and other components.
Epson, which was scheduled to have a Color Imaging Exhibition just a week after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake, also had to shut down three of its facilities. Sony was reportedly hit the hardest, with the closure of 10 factories and two research centers.
Nikon’s Sendai factory, located near the earthquake’s epicenter, halted production on its D3S, D3X, D700 and F6 camera models but, according to a report from Nikon, had resumed production by the end of March.
Canon closed eight factories after the disaster, but reported that all locations were in full production again by the end of April. However, this relatively quick recovery did not bar the industry giant from reassessing its annual projections. At the end of April, Canon said that its net income is expected to fall 11 percent (to $2.7 billion) by December of this year. Nikon, which had just experienced a 2.98 percent increase in its stock price in the first quarter, has not yet released its annual projections.
Even plants left unscathed by the earthquake and tsunami continue to face production challenges due to fuel shortages and power blackout threats. Olympus, for example, said in a recent report that its Shirakawa factory had closed due to low power supply and did not reopen fully until mid-April.
Although activity at most major manufacturers came to a halt, an April report issued by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry stated that more than 60 percent of affected manufacturers have already finished restoration, and another 30 percent expect to be running again by the summer of 2011.
While the effect on demand from these production delays has not yet been widely seen, some products have already seen price spikes, such as Toshiba’s 32-gigabit NAND Flash memory card, which has increased in price by 18 percent.