Canon Inc Takes Cost-Cutting Steps to Soften Expected Impact of Strong Yen

Reuters is reporting that:

"Canon Inc aims to cut at least 400 billion yen ($4.84 billion) in costs over four years to soften the likely impact of a strong yen and an economic slowdown in Europe, the Nikkei reported.

Canon estimates that the yen's firmness will depress its operating profit by a little more than 100 billion yen from a year earlier, the business daily said.

The company plans to use industrial robots to achieve these goals. In addition to increasing the use of industrial robots in toner production, Canon will consider introducing them in the production of interchangeable lenses for single-lens-reflex cameras, the daily reported.

In fiscal 2015, Canon hopes to lift its sales to 5 trillion yen or higher, up 41 percent from the year-ended December 2011, Nikkei said.

($1 = 82.6700 Japanese yen)"