Canon Powers Way To Top

By Greg Scoblete On Jul 25 2005 - 6:00am

The past year has seen a noticeable shift in fortunes among some of the marquee brands in the digital camera market as Canon and Kodak have bumped Sony from its long-held position atop the market.

The micro picture closely mirrored the macro picture, with Canon and Kodak virtually neck-and-neck for the top-selling model in TWICE's annual Success Story top product feature. Interestingly, Canon had but one product among the top ten best sellers from June 2004 through May 2005; but it was No. 1.

The 3-megapixel PowerShot A75 was a “home run” for dealers based on its feature set, style and cosmetics, and value, according to Eliot Peck, sales VP and general manager, Canon. Indeed, Peck noted that orders were so strong during the fourth quarter of 2004 — when the suggested retail was brought from $299.99 to $199.99 — that the model was on “severe back order” for the majority of the quarter.

The A-series was geared toward “high quality features at attractive price points” migrating some features down from the higher-level G-series to attract savvier consumers, Peck said.

The A75, which began shipping in the spring of 2004, offered a 3x optical zoom and was one of the first Canon models to incorporate the print/share button. This dedicated button let consumers transfer and print pictures to Canon printers without first connecting to a PC. Using the button, consumers could produce photo IDs in 28 sizes and, on the company's CP printer line, print individual still images from video clips captured by the camera.

The camera was also PictBridge-enabled.

The A75 also benefited from the company's DIGIC processor, 12 shooting modes and a 9-point autofocus system, Peck said, all of which made it “attractive to first time digital camera buyers.”

The product was also the beneficiary of improved brand-awareness, as Canon heavily promoted its first lower-cost digital SLR — the Digital Rebel — and ramped up its effort to make significant gains in the photo printer market, Peck said.