Canon Reveals Plans for ‘Advanced’ EOS R Model in Financial Presentation

Canon has released its financial results and presentation for the 2019 fiscal year, which included some interesting revelations about 2020. Despite believing the camera market will continue to shrink, Canon predicts ‘stable demand’ for professional cameras, and outright mentions plans to release an ‘advanced’ EOS R camera.

You can read the full corporate summary presentation by Executive Vice President and CFO Toshizo Tanaka at this link—the camera unit is covered on pages 13 and 14—but the gist is that Canon is going all in on “professional and advanced-amateur models,” because it believes this is where demand is most stable.

“In 2020, although we expect market contraction to continue at a similar rate [15%] and the market size to be around 7.5 million units, we also see stable demand for professional and advanced-amateur models,” reads the presentation. “In order to maintain profitability, it is important for us to secure market share and improve our product mix further in this area.”

By “improve our product mix,” Mr. Tanaka is talking specifically about releasing more mirrorless EOS R cameras and further expanding Canon’s lineup of RF-mount lenses (emphasis added):

Although we have launched two full-frame mirrorless cameras as well as ten dedicated lenses, our lineup is still insufficient. In order to recover from our late entry into the mirrorless camera market, we have plans to launch a model that incorporates a newly developed image sensor and image-processing engine that offer even more advanced features.

[…]

At the same time, we will expand our lineup of dedicated lenses launching several innovative ones that take advantage of the new mount that allows greater flexibility when designing lenses. We will accelerate sales by responding to user need to capture various images, expanding options by combining camera bodies and lenses.

These statements seem to support the most recent rumors regarding Canon’s plans for the EOS R series, which allegedly include a 45MP “EOS R5” with IBIS and 8K video. It also reiterates Canon’s stated commitment to RF mount lenses, even if it means halting development of new EF glass.

Whether or not you follow the rumors (or believe them) one thing’s for sure: Canon is determined to “improve their product mix” in the mirrorless segment in order to more aggressively take on Sony, and those plans include at least one “advanced” model that is already in the works.

(via Canon Rumors)

Image credits: Header photo by Abhishek Vanamali, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0