Most camera companies have elected to remain quiet about how new tariffs are affecting supply chains in the United States, but Canon Japan finally spoke on the issue during a question-and-answer period following its 2025 first-quarter financial results.
As reported by Digital Camera World, tariffs and their rolling effects were a major point of concern in a multi-page Q&A Session Summary attached to the company’s Q1 2025 Analyst Meeting. While the entire world is subject to a blanket 10% tariff for now, Chinese-produced equipment has been hit with a massive 145% tariff. Luckily, Canon doesn’t believe the much larger tariff will affect the US market.
“Since most of the products we produce in China is for the Chinese market and the amount exported from China to the United States is very small, we expect virtually no impact,” Canon says.
Manufacturers that PetaPixel has spoken to have said that they were able to wait a bit to determine the outcome of increased pricing caused by President Trump’s economic strategy because of existing inventory in the country. That said, the amount of existing inventory varies per company and, obviously, does not include new products. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as though Canon has much runway in that department, and says that existing inventory in the US isn’t large: it is only one to two months’ supply. As a result, prices will have to go up.
“We have notified major dealers that we will raise prices and are in the process of estimating the timing and amount of the increase. Since tariffs are borne against the cost of goods, the higher the cost ratio is, the higher the price rate increases,” Canon says. “We will conduct a detailed analysis, including the cost of each product and where it is produced, and will determine the rate of price increase for each product.”
Canon was also asked if it took into consideration a reduction in sales volume due to the increased cost.
“As for the decrease in sales volume due to price increase, we calculated the impact based on our experience and with a focus on the United States. As we assumed that there will be no impact on other regions, if the tariff issue were to trigger a global recession, our assumptions will change. Also, for example, there are products such as cameras that are on backorder, and even if we cannot ship them to the U.S., we believe that we can ship those products to other regions,” Canon says.
Canon says the US makes up about 25% of its camera market sales volume, so while it is a highly important region, the company can rely on its other regions collectively to outweigh any slowing demand in the US.
Because of existing inventory and inventory imported before the increased tariff rate, Canon estimates that the biggest impact from these increased costs is going to be felt in the second half of 2025. The company has no plans to try and build up its inventory ahead of possible increased tariffs, which are still possible once a 90-day “pause” expires in June.
“If the announced additional tariff of above 10% are applied, we will have an advantage in the field of cameras, as we produce more products in Japan than other companies,” Canon explains. “We do not have plans to ship products to the U.S. ahead of schedule. Rather, we are more conscious of the risk of having inventory which does not lead to sales.”
At the time of publication, Canon USA had not released a public statement about how tariffs are affecting its region, making this single document the only place Canon has directly answered questions. This isn’t unusual, though, as Sony has remained silent as has Nikon. The only camera companies who have spoken about tariffs at all are Blackmagic (which revealed it canceled a US factory plan after tariffs were introduced) and Fujifilm, which said it had paused the shipments of some cameras into the country as a result of Trump’s policy.
Image credits: Canon
Source link
