Canon finding a smartphone manufacturer to partner with – Times of India

Phone manufacturers have recently been teaming up with popular camera brands to improve the cameras on their phones. After a couple of partnerships, another camera brand is looking for a smartphone maker.
Long ago, Nokia teamed up with Zeiss. While that partnership is not a thing anymore, Zeiss has partnered with Vivo, and they also have a thing going on with Sony. Then, there’s Leica, the German camera maker, who used to be with Huawei, but now it is Leica and Xiaomi. There is also Hasselblad, which can be seen on the Oppo and OnePlus phones. And now Canon is hoping to find their partner so that they can also have their name on the back of a phone.
Digital Chat Station on the Chinese social media platform Weibo has shared that Canon is considering partnering with smartphone companies. However, they did not disclose which company Canon is interested in. Although, based on previous partnerships, we can speculate which companies they may be considering.
It is highly unlikely that Apple, Samsung, or Google would enter into such an agreement. Then, Sony, Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, and OnePlus are already in a relationship. That leaves us with Huawei, Honor, Realme, and Motorola are more likely to participate.
It is uncertain what Canon will offer in terms of contribution. The ‘Canon’ name could either be a mere marketing tactic, or the camera maker may collaborate with the smartphone manufacturer to work on the software and hardware together.
Chinese phone manufacturers have partnered with camera makers to upsell their phones as replacements. While they all boast about how intertwined their partnerships are, it does not always mean so. So, it is to be seen what the arrangement will be.
Aside from Canon, Nikon is the only other major camera maker that has not dipped its hands into the smartphone waters. And there are also other makers who went all in the smartphone game – Kodak and Red – with their own smartphones but failed miserably.