• Reuters, Thursday, January 19, 2006 12:30 PM

A well-known and respected brand in the photography industry is about to disappear, following the surprise announcement from Japan's Konica Minolta Holdings that it is pulling out of the camera and color film businesses. The move was attributed to the rapid decline of an industry sparked by the spread of digital cameras, which do not use film. The company said it will sell a portion of its digital single lens reflex camera assets to Sony Corp. and cease production of compact cameras by March of this year. Konica Minolta is the world's third-largest maker of camera film after Eastman Kodak and Fuji Photo Film Co., and had said in November that it would significantly downsize its loss-making camera and film operations, but not completely shut them down. "I wanted to put a clear end to the matter," said Konica Minolta President Fumio Iwai, who will be replaced by Vice President Yoshikatsu Ota on April 1. Konica Minolta was created in August 2003 through the merger of Konica Corp. and Minolta Co., and has a long history in the camera and film markets, producing Japan's first photographic paper in 1903 and the country's first color film in 1940.

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