Canon Inc.
Goro Yoshida was born in Hiroshima; he worked as an apprentice in a company repairing and remodelling motion picture cameras and projectors in 1920. In those days a high-end camera was very expensive, thus not many people can afford it. But he had a chance to disassembling it due to his job requirement. When he disassembled it, he realised that the inside of the camera was not made of anything expensive. This made him unhappy because the cameras were sold at an exorbitant price but there is nothing expensive in it. Thus from there on, he was determined to create an affordable camera for everyone.
Goro Yoshida, Saburo Uchida and Takeo Maeda started a small laboratory dedicated to making high-quality cameras in a simple apartment room in the Roppongi area of Tokyo in 1933. This was also an important stepping stone to the creation of Canon.
The three succeeded in building the first prototype, which was named Kwanon after the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy. Then in 1935, Japan's first-ever 35 mm focal-plane-shutter camera, the Hanza Canon, was born, marking the origins of the Canon brand.
Today, Canon has successfully become one of the giants in the production of photographic equipments. Their core products remained as digital, film cameras and lens production while they expend their business to camcorders, photocopiers, printers, scanners, projectors, calculators, binoculars and as well as their own ink cartridges.
Canon has sales and marketing headquarters around the world as well as their own research & development centres. The centre in Philippines specializes in the development of electronic application equipment and software. The centre in India focuses on image-processing and other software. While the research laboratory in China focuses on Chinese-language processing, image processing technologies and internet-related applications. In total they have 9 research centres in Asia as well as 7 manufacturing plants in China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam which produce a range of Canon products like lens, copiers, printers, digital and film cameras.
Canon has a total of 160,000 employees around the world. Their net sales are at 829.2 billion yen and their net income is at 61.5 billion yen as of 1st quarter in 2012.

SWOT Analysis of Canon Inc.
Strength
Canon is a leading digital imaging and network company; they have 9 research & development centres in Asia to handle different type of product research. These centres enable them to focus on different types of product research & development individually. Canon stands out from the rest of its competitors by focusing on innovations based on consumers in mind; they have a total of 2,543 U.S patents granted in 2010 alone. Canon built their products based on “kyosei” philosophy which the company have always adapted to. This philosophy ensures that all their products are produced to improve efficiency regardless of at home or at work.
Their cameras are also made of high quality sturdy materials which enable them to go through harsh weather conditions and still able to capture quality image. They provide a service plan called “Privileged Purchase Plan” for Canon consumers which allow them to “trade-in” their non working products for another product at a discounted price. This plan made them have an edge over other competitors in the market.
Weakness