Singapore: Fujifilm Corporation has started full-scale operation of Fujifilm Optics Philippines in Laguna. The new company will become the core production base for high-performance lenses used for digital cameras, projectors and surveillance cameras. Fujifilm positions the optical device and electronic imaging business field handling digital cameras and optical lenses as one of its priority areas, and has been enhancing business operations for this field.

As optical lenses are used in a wide range of products from consumer to professional use including digital cameras, mobile phones, smartphones, broadcasting TV cameras, surveillance cameras and projectors, worldwide growth is expected especially from emerging countries. Furthermore, due to the development of digital cameras, projectors and surveillance cameras with higher performance, the demand for lenses with excellent optical performance is increasing.

Imaging solutions that include digital cameras and optical devices make up 13.3 percent of the Fujifilm group's business portfolio. Information solutions for medical systems, health care and life science are about 41 percent of Fujifilm while document solutions such as copiers, printers and graphics account for about 45.7 percent.

Fujifilm Optics Philippines president Mr Akinori Harada told a local publication that world demand for high-performance lenses would come from emerging economies. Mr Harada said the company would distribute about 30 percent of the output to accredited Philippine Economic Zone Authority end-users, such as camera and medical equipment manufacturers. It will export the bulk of production to China and Japan.
The new factory will offer an integrated production process from the polishing, coating and other processing procedures to the assembling of optical lenses.

At the new factory, new production equipment, such as the "lens polishing machine" which polishes the surface of glass lenses with high precision at nano levels, and the "vacuum evaporation machine" which forms multilayer thin films for antireflection will be introduced for the production of high-performance lenses of digital cameras, projectors and surveillance cameras.

By enhancing the production capacity step by step, Fujifilm intends to increase the number of employees to 600 and the production to 18 million lenses a year by FY2015, so as to respond to the growing demand for optical lenses. The total investment for the new factory is 2.3 billion yen.
Fujifilm has responded to the wide range of diversifying needs of customers by offering Fujinon brand products that have been developed with Fujifilm's proprietary development and design capacity, as well as high-level manufacturing technologies and quality control. As a leading company in the optical device field, Fujifilm will contribute to the further expansion of this field with its development and sales of products that meet the market needs.