Canon ‘Kiss’ Brand to Disappear, EOS M and ‘Rebel’ to Follow Suit

Canon Marketing Japan has spelled the end for the “Kiss” brand of cameras. Known in North America as a range of entry-level cameras from the EOS M series through the Rebel, the West has seen the last of new additions for these brands, too.

Reported by ITmedia and spotted by Digicame Info, along with the announcement of the new EOS R50 camera earlier this week, Canon will be slowly moving away from the Kiss branding that it has used for the past three decades.

So while Canon celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Kiss brand, it is bittersweet as it will be put out to pasture.

Canon Japan says that while the Kiss series is extremely popular, the company has recognized the need to adjust to the changing times and in order to “convey the appeal of mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras to a wider range of people than Kiss users so far, it has been integrated into a model name that is used globally instead of the Kiss brand.” That new shift is, of course, “R” in the form of the R50.

During its press event for the EOS R50 launch, Canon USA basically said as much to North American-based journalists including PetaPixel. While it wasn’t so finite in its words, the message was clear: EOS M will go away and is to be replaced by the R50 and cameras like it. The company plans to sell the cameras in that line for an indeterminate amount of time, but no new products will be released on either the camera or lens side.

But Kiss didn’t just encompass EOS M in Japan, it also referred to a wide range of DSLR cameras that were marketed under the Rebel name in other territories, including North America. It shouldn’t be a particular surprise that this means that the Rebel line is very likely done for as well. Canon has continued to sell Rebel-series DSLRs for some time, but the company hasn’t released any new products for it in several years. While Canon has not officially confirmed the death of Rebel, the writing is on the wall.

Just as will be the case in Japan, Canon will likely continue to sell these legacy entry-level cameras as long as consumers continue to buy them. In Japan, for example, the Kiss M2 and EOS Kiss series (which includes the Kiss X10 and Kiss X10i) are still available to purchase, and they continue to sell reasonably well.

Canon will very likely carry on with this strategy for as long as it is still profitable to manufacture the Rebel and EOS M series or until all of the remaining stock has been sold.

PetaPixel reached out to Canon for comment, but the company did not have any information to share at this time.

Image credits: Header photo by Kenny Eliason