Olympus History

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• History of Cameras
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  • the Semi-Olympus I - the Pen Series
  • the Olympus OM-1 - the XA Series

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While I was developing the OM, others were worried about the future of 35mm compact cameras.

XA I would now like to talk about the XA. We launched the OM-1 in 1972 and the OM-2 in 1975. A product that was not previously available on the market can be seen as innovative, and in some senses it might be regarded as odd. The creation of a new product involves considerable effort by a wide range of people. The backbone users are not the ones who opt for a particular brand, but rather the people who choose a product because they really understand its characteristics. It's because of those people that our cameras continue to command high prices, even though they have become classics. Someone once asked me why the prices have stayed high even though the products are now classic cameras. I have never designed a classic camera! With the benefit of hindsight, all I can say is that the cameras turned out well. When we introduced the OM-2, a new manager was appointed to lead the Marketing and Planning Division. The new manager had started out working with microscopes. He was an expert on statistics and would carefully follow trends in numerical data. The Pen was selling well, and Olympus had a market share of over 60% for half-size cameras and 36-37% for 35mm compact cameras. That's why we were able to introduce the OM. Because the entire company was focused on developing SLRs, we couldn't introduce many new products, and our market share had fallen from 36-37% to around 35%. Normally a change on this scale would not be noticed, but that manager decided that we needed to do something about the trend. He told me that I should develop something. He had previously worked in development, and we were chatting about those times one day when he said that he knew I was busy with SLRs and asked if it would be acceptable for the sales people to plan a new product. It is normal for Marketing people to plan new products, and I was indeed very busy, so I told him to go ahead. So the Marketing and Planning Division manager issued a directive to sales offices in Japan and overseas. It said that there was a crisis in the 35mm compact camera segment, and that our market share was in danger of slipping below 35%. The directive said that Olympus needed everyone to help plan a new product. About two weeks later I received a telephone call from the manager of the Osaka Branch. He told me that they had all discussed the problem but had been unable to come up with any ideas. “You're our only hope,” he said. “Haven't you got any ideas?” There was a similar call from the Tokyo Branch around the same time. I knew the inside story, and so tongue in cheek I told him that I was too busy to help, and that they should carry on by themselves. A month later I was summoned by the Marketing and Planning Division manager It seems that they had all struggled to produce ideas but they were stuck. “Can't you help us?” he asked.

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