Olympus and Sony announce business and capital alliance

“Partnering with Sony will provide great advantage to Olympus and enable the two companies to exchange various complementary competencies”, said Hiroyuki Sasa, Representative Director and President Olympus Corporation. “Investment from Sony will help us to strengthen our financial base. In addition, through this alliance, the strengths of the two companies will merge, certainly making it possible for Olympus to contribute to world medial progress by developing a variety of new medial devices that would not be possible by Olympus alone. In the field of digital cameras, we will seek to achieve collaboration in a mannter that further improves the competitiveness of the two companies.”

Kazuo Hirai, President and CEO of Sony Corporation, added: “By combining Sony’s cutting-edge technologies in areas such as digital imaging, 3D and 4K (editor’s note: video images with 4x resolution of Full HD = 4,196 x 2,160 pixels) with Olympus’s long-standing experience and established foundations in the medical market, we believe that we will be able to create highly innovative and competitive products and generate new business opportunities in surgical endoscopes and other related areas where significant future growth is anticipated. We also believe there are many potential opportunities for collaboration between Olympus and Sony’s digital camera businesses, and are confident that by building on our respective strengths we can also enhance and grow our presence in this market.“

In December this year, Olympus and Sony will establish a medical business venture company of which Sony will hold 51 percent of the shares. While the name of the new company, its location and other details are not yet known, it will focus on the development of new surgical endoscopes with 4K (or higher) resolution or 3D function, and related systems. The core business of the new company will be the development, production and marketing of integrated solutions of medical and video equipment for operating rooms and other medial arenas.

In the camera business, the two companies aim to enhance their competitiveness primarly in the area of compact digital cameras by exploring opportunities for mutually benefical transactions and the collaboration between their respective camera businesses including the supply of Olympus technologies such as camera lenses and mirror cells to Sony and the provision of Sony image sensors to Olympus.