Canon

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Canon Inc. (キヤノン株式会社, Kiyanon Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese multinational corporation specializing in the manufacture of imaging and optical products, including cameras, camcorders, professional displays, TV broadcasting and film equipment, projectors, photocopiers, photolitography equipment (steppers, scanners), computer printers, image scanners, photocopiers, binoculars, microscopes, medical equipment (including Computer Tomography diagnostic systems, MRI and diagnostic ultrasound systems), LCD and OLED panel manufacturing equipment, CCTV solutions, imagining sensors, calculators, high precision positioning and measurements solutions, and custom optical components (including lenses) for third party companies. It is headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan.

Canon has a primary listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the TOPIX index. It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Canon Inc. has 383 subsidiaries as of 31 June 2017. The number includes second-generation subsidiaries, for example, Canon IT Solutions Inc.

The company was originally named Seikikōgaku kenkyūsho (Jpn. 精機光学研究所, Precision Optical Industry Co. Ltd.). In 1934 it produced the Kwanon, a prototype for Japan's first-ever 35 mm camera with a focal-plane-based shutter. In 1947 the company name was changed to Canon Camera Co., Inc., shortened to Canon Inc. in 1969. The name Canon comes from Buddhist bodhisattva Guan Yin (観音, Kannon in Japanese), previously transliterated as Kuanyin, Kwannon, or Kwanon in English.

The origins of Canon date back to the founding of Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory in Japan in 1937 by Takeshi Mitarai, Goro Yoshida, Saburo Uchida and Takeo Maeda. During its early years the company did not have any facilities to produce its own optical glass, and its first cameras incorporated Nikkor lenses from Nippon Kogaku K.K. (the later Nikon Corporation).

Between 1933 and 1936 'The Kwanon', a copy of the Leica design, Japan's first 35 mm focal-plane-shutter camera, was developed in prototype form. In 1940 Canon developed Japan's first indirect X-ray camera. Canon introduced a field zoom lens for television broadcasting in 1958 and in 1959 introduced the Reflex Zoom 8, the world's first movie camera with a zoom lens, and the Canonflex.

In 1961 Canon introduced the Rangefinder camera, Canon 7, and 50mm 1:0.95 lens in a special bayonet mount. In 1964 Canon introduced the 'Canola 130', the first Japanese made 10-key calculator, a substantial improvement on the design of the British Bell Punch company, which introduced the first fully electronic calculator two years earlier with the Sumlock Anita Mark 8 unit. In 1965 Canon introduced the Canon Pellix, a single lens reflex (SLR) camera with a semi-transparent stationary mirror which enabled the taking of pictures through the mirror.