Yashica Enters Digital Camera Market

By TWICE staff

Yashica's introduction this month of the Samurai 2100D digital camera, which will be marketed under the Kyocera brand name, marks the company's long-awaited entry into the digital camera market.

The 2-megapixel Samurai features a 4x optical zoom and 1.8-inch LCD and comes with an 8MB CompactFlash card capable of storing 16 fine-resolution images.

Kyocera is Yashica's parent company and a manufacturer of electronic and computer peripheral devices in Japan. The introduction of this camera is in anticipation of the company introducing additional Kyocera products into the U.S. market in the next few years, said William Heuer, president of Kyocera Optics. "Kyocera decided to use its name and not the better known Yashica in order to build it as a brand in the U.S.," he said.

For the brand to be successful, Heuer continued, the message must be hammered home to the consumer that the camera's optics are supplied by Yashica and the electronic components by Kyocera. He admitted this would take time and have to be done at the point of sale by a trained sales associate and through the Internet.

The company will construct a special area on its web site where the benefits of the camera can be fully explained. "We can do much more with a web site as opposed to handing out a brochure in a store," said Heuer. -- Doug Olenick