Fujifilm

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Fujifilm began life in 1934 as a subsidiary of a Japanese chemical company called Daicel, making photographic film. Few corporate origin stories seem less dramatic. Yet the company that started by coating light-sensitive chemicals onto strips of acetate now manufactures pharmaceutical drugs, regenerative medicine, stem cells, cosmetics, and data tape cartridges capable of storing 400 terabytes. How does a film company become a biotechnology and healthcare conglomerate? And what happened to photography along the way? Those questions sit at the heart of Fujifilm's unusual story.

• 2. From Film to Global Markets

  ›

  Fuji Photo Film began pushing into new product areas as early as the 1940s, moving into optical glasses, lenses, and equipment. By the mid-1950s the company had started building overseas sales bases, expanding its international footprint well before many Japanese manufacturers had done so.

  The boldest early move in the international market came in 1984. Fuji Photo became one of the title sponsors of the Los Angeles Olympics, a decision that put its distinctive green-and-red packaging in front of a global television audience. The company paired that visibility with lower prices and opened a film factory inside the United States, eroding the near-monopoly that Eastman Kodak had long held on American camera film.

  Kodak's response came in May 1995, when it filed a petition with the US Commerce Department under section 301 of the Commerce Act. Kodak argued that Fuji's dominance of the Japanese film market was the result of unfair practices, not competition. The complaint was escalated to the World Trade Organization. On the 30th of January 1998, the WTO issued what it called a sweeping rejection of Kodak's complaints, a ruling that cleared Fuji of the accusations and settled the dispute formally in its favour.

• 3. Violence and Corporate Courage

  ›

  In 1994, Fuji Photo's vice president Juntaro Suzuki made a public announcement with serious personal risks attached. He declared that the company would stop paying sokaiya, a protection racket bribe that certain corporations paid to Yakuza in exchange for peaceful shareholder meetings. The practice was widespread in Japanese business at the time.

  The Yakuza's retaliation was swift and lethal. Suzuki was murdered in front of his own home. His death stands as one of the starkest examples of how deeply organised crime had penetrated Japanese corporate life, and it put a human face on what might otherwise read as a dry compliance story. Suzuki's decision to halt the payments, and the price he paid for it, cast a long shadow over Fujifilm's history in the 1990s.

• 4. The Xerox Partnership

  ›

  In 1962, Fuji Photo entered a joint venture with UK-based Rank Xerox Limited, creating Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. The partnership would last for more than five decades, giving Fujifilm a major foothold in the office equipment business and making photocopiers and printers a core part of its revenue.

  On the 31st of January 2018, Fujifilm announced it would acquire a 50.1% controlling stake in Xerox Corporation for US$6.1 billion, folding it into the existing Fuji Xerox business. The deal was dropped after activist investors Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason intervened. In late 2019, Fujifilm instead acquired Xerox's 25% stake in the 57-year-old joint venture, making Fuji Xerox a wholly owned subsidiary. On the 1st of April 2021, the company was renamed Fujifilm Business Innovation Corporation.

• 5. Healthcare and Biotechnology

  ›

  Fujifilm's pivot into medicine grew directly out of technical expertise built in its photography business. During the 1980s, the company developed computed radiography, a technology that addressed problems with traditional X-ray imaging by reducing radiation exposure for both technicians and patients. Fujifilm marketed these systems under the FCR brand.

  In December 2019, Fujifilm paid US$1.63 billion to acquire Hitachi's diagnostic imaging business, a move that deepened its position in medical equipment. Earlier that same year, it had acquired a biologics production facility in Denmark from the pharmaceutical company Biogen for around US$890 million. In June 2020, Fujifilm committed a further US$928 million to that Danish facility to double its manufacturing capacity.

  Amid the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, a drug made by Fujifilm's subsidiary Fujifilm Toyama Chemical drew international attention. Favipiravir, sold commercially as Avigan, was considered as a possible treatment for the virus. By June 2020 authorities in China, Russia, and Indonesia had approved the drug. The episode illustrated how far Fujifilm had travelled from its origins as a film manufacturer.

• 6. Film's Stubborn Survival

  ›

  When Fujifilm announced its new holding company structure on the 19th of September 2006, a company representative confirmed that photographic film still accounted for 3% of sales. That figure was shrinking, but film had not disappeared.

  For the Japanese domestic market in 2026, Fujifilm still produces several film stocks: Velvia 50 and 100 for colour reversal photography, Provia 100F, Fujicolor 100, Fujifilm Superia Premium 400 for colour negative work, and Neopan ACROS II 100 in black and white. The Instax line of instant cameras and film, available in Mini, Wide, and Square formats, brought a new generation of consumers back to physical photographs at a time when digital seemed to have won decisively.

  Fujifilm's medium format GFX cameras and the APS-C X series sit at the professional and enthusiast end of the digital market, while Fujinon lenses have become, according to the company, the most widely used television lenses in the world. A company founded to make film never entirely stopped being a camera company.

• 7. Tape, Data, and the Future

  ›

  In June 2020, Fujifilm showcased a tape cartridge using strontium ferrite that could store up to 400 terabytes. Magnetic tape, a technology that many assumed had been swept aside by hard drives and cloud storage, has found a second life in data archiving for large organisations. Fujifilm's investment in that medium reflects a company comfortable betting on technologies others have written off.

  As of July 2020, the Fujifilm Group operated more than 300 subsidiaries across two main operating companies, covering imaging, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, biologics manufacturing, cosmetics, and industrial chemicals. The group is part of the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group keiretsu, embedding it within one of Japan's major financial networks. Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, the biologics contract manufacturing arm, now places the company inside the supply chain for some of the world's most complex medicines.