Grapesoda

I think you can forget "like", because Canon is tied to Nissan, Fujifilm to Toyota, and Nikon to Mitsubishi. It all has to do with Japanese business arrangements called "keiretsu". At one time, each of the big six held both a camera company and a car company. Several of them still do. Most also held a brewery. Here's the current lineup:

Mitsubishi keiretsu contains Nikon, Kirin, and Mitsubishi automotive.

Fuyo keiretsu contains Canon, Sapporo, and Nissan.

Mitsui keiretsu contains Fujifilm, Asahi breweries, and Toyota.


Sanwa keiretsu is heavy industry oriented. They divested themselves of the dead weight of Konica/Minolta's camera division (keeping the profitable office machinery division) and Kyocera. As far as I know they make neither cars nor beer.

DKB contained Pentax, no beer, and Isuzu cars. Some bank mergers caused DKB to get rid of Pentax.

Sumitomo keiretsu is Mazda cars, Olympus cameras, and I'm not sure about the beer.

You most frequently hear of keiretsu when someone posts about Mitsubishi owning Nikon. (The other keiretsu are not that well known, and people just assume Canon, Pentax, Fujifilm, etc. are independent). Nikon is not "owned" by any corporation to which you commonly apply the name "Mitsubishi", but they are part of the Mitsubishi keiretsu. Basically, that means that Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ is a major investor in Nikon, and holds a bit more control over them than a bank would in the US or Europe. The bank can do things like moving executives from Nikon to any other Mitsubishi keiretsu company, such as Mitsubishi automotive, Kirin breweries, etc. as if they were part of the same company. This cannot happen at the "rank and file" employee level, and there are restrictions on the transfers of both money and property.

There are six major keiretsu, but recent bank mergers have left the lines between them rather blurred.

Fuyo keiretsu is centered around Mizuho Bank (formerly Fuji Bank) and contains Canon camera, as well as Nissan cars, and Sapporo beer. (I always throw the car connection in when I do a Keiretsu lecture, because I'm from Detroit, and the beer connection, because, well, it's fun). So, if you consider Fuji (the bank) they make Canon cameras, sensors, and IC manufacturing equipment.

Fujifilm is part of the Mitsui keiretsu and their bank is Sumitomo Mitsui Bank (formerly Sakura Bank). Other prominent members of Mitsui Keiretsu are Toyota cars and Asahi Breweries. It also contains Toshiba, although Toshiba does not fab the Fujfilm sensors. Mitsui also contains Asahi Soft Drinks. Those are the folks who were the first to put coffee in a pop can, and have had American cultural icons Hank Aaron and Tiger Woods as spokesmen.

The Mitsubishi keiretsu is centered around what was Mitsubishi bank (and they were once the only keiretsu not named after its bank). It contains Nikon, Mitsubishi automotive, and Kirin beer.

Sanwa keiretsu contained two camera companies, both KM and Kyocera (who was licensed by Zeiss to make "Contax" cameras). Their bank was the UJF bank.

Life got interesting when Mitsubishi bank (Nikon) merged with UFJ bank (KM and Kyocera) to form Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. Before the bank merger, KM and Kyocera were more loosely tied to their keiretsu than Nikon was. Having them suddenly incorporated into the keiretsu left Mitsubishi with the alternatives of keeping all those marques, selling them off (as they did KM's camera operation to Sony, who exists outside the keiretsu system), merging them into Nikon, or shutting them down (as they did Contax).

Pentax was is in DKB, along with Fujitsu and Hitachi. Nikon, although they're in Mitsubishi Keiretsu, uses Fujitsu for the main processors in their DSLRs, and Hitachi for the smaller control processors. The Keiretsu arrangements don't say "you must use 100% components from other members of the keiretsu". It's more a "first right of refusal" thing. The recent sale of Pentax to Hoya pretty much removes Pentax from the keiretsu system. Otherwise, the transfer of DKB assets to Mizuho bank (Fuyo kieretsu and Canon) would have left Pentax in the same situation as KM, the "poor cousin" after the merger.

Olympus is in Sumitomo, along with Mazda (not sure about the beer or soft drink aspects). I mentioned three mergers. The last bank merger involved Sakura (Mitsui) bank and Sumitomo bank. This was rather uninteresting to photographers, as Fujifilm and Olympus have been closely tied for years, and sufficiently non-overlapping to not cause distress to the banks. But the merger caused ripples through the automotive industry, as it put Mazda and Nissan into the same bucket. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) Ford owns a controlling interest in Mazda, and Renault in Nissan, so they are held a bit more outside the keiretsu system than say Toyota or Mitsubishi.

Sony exists outside the keiretsu system, but is big enough and diverse enough (from video to still cameras to home entertainment to semiconductor fab) to be considered a keiretsu of its own.

Panasonic is more like a brand label of Matsushita. Matsushita, like Sony, exists outside the big six keiretsu.

tony286

Very interesting stuff.Thanks

Grapesoda

I've know of this for some time however I've never seen it laid out clearly like this before.

aico

Thanks, now I know to ask for free beer and a camera next time I buy a car.

jonesy

great read

its funny i like and use canon, owned a nissan and drink sapporo (and kirin too)

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zand_stein

Wanton your right its really interesting........

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cj_purve

wow great read ... interesting that all of those networks were built based on a standard set of business types ... I've never seen it illustrated so clearly before.

thank you!

Grapesoda

yes very sharp, the US is getting that way with buy-outs and stock leverages however this country wasn't built that way from the beginning like japan