The article, authored by Reuters' Isabel Reynolds and Reiji Murai, further reports that the company has set itself the ambitious goal of overtaking Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. to become the world's fourth largest camera maker by next March, by increasing sales some 25% to 14 million units. Once achieved, the plan would then be to claim the number three spot from Japan's Nikon Corp. within the following two years.

Fujifilm's last interchangeable lens digital camera was the S3 Pro UVIR, launched in late 2006 as a specialized variant of 2005's FinePix S3 Pro. As with the company's preceding digital SLRs, the FinePix S3 Pro wasn't entirely an in-house effort, being based on a Nikon film camera body and Nikon F lens mount. Should the company return to the interchangeable lens market, that looks set to change. Reuters quotes Fujifilm's Senior Vice President and Director, Takeshi Higuchi, as insisting that the company could "do all the important development in-house". The challenge, suggests Higuchi, is instead to increase the brand's profile.

Reuters also reports that Fujifilm is looking to move some production outside of China, citing high staff turnover and increasing wages. Currently, only the X100 is produced in Japan, with all of the company's other cameras being manufactured in China. Possible future sites for production include Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, with the latter apparently showing particular promise.

More details can be found in the Reuters article.