The History of Kodak

Eastman Kodak Company introducing the history of Kodak is a film company established in 1880, establishing a brand in the market through customer-centered advertising, research development and low-cost mass production growth. Founder George Eastman said about Kodak's competitive philosophy, "There is nothing more important than the value of our name and the quality it represents, we must assert our quality against the struggle." Gavetti, Henderson & Giorgi, 2005).

In the long history of Kodak, Kodak has overcome many threats to its business. Successful companies that make Kodak one of the most famous brands in the world are struggling for competitors to enter the market. Fuji Corporation in Japan has entered the market not only in Japan but also in the United States and has acquired a high market share. Fuji and other Japanese companies can design paper for printing film at a lower price than Kodak offers to consumers. This is a big problem for Kodak. Because Kodak can not gain competitive advantage and can not gain market share. In addition, as competition in the photographic product market intensifies, Kodak needs to reduce revenues and lower product prices to maintain competitiveness with competitors.

Kodak is an innovative company with a long history. The founder, George Eastman, tried to make the picture "daily work". The basic purpose of Kodak is to enable customers to capture and share their most important memories. "The moment of Kodak" became part of popular vocabulary. It will also promote sales. Kodak occupies 90% of film sales and dominates the US market. Kodak invented a digital camera in 1976. Kodak officials killed it in order to infringe the proceeds of the movie development business. They had forgotten the original purpose ("not movie sales" but "memory"). Other companies launched digital cameras on the market and destroyed the film industry. Kodak applied for bankruptcy in 2012 (Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler have detailed explanations in their book Bold). Three months after KODAK declared bankruptcy, a startup called Instagram was sold to Facebook for $ 1 billion in 18 months.

By the middle of the 20th century, only Americans bought more than 1 billion movies. Kodak's profit margin in movies is over 80%. At one point, Kodak occupied 90% of US movies and 85% of camera sales markets. But by 2012, earnings plummeted, the company filed for bankruptcy and lost 50,000 jobs. Kodak reduced a large number of patents, but it is not a problem. What's wrong? The number digital camera raided the scene and destroyed the movie market. This is not the end of the story. Then the smartphone will take over and eliminate the independent digital camera. In 2015, 5 billion smart phones will be purchased all over the world. This is a 5 billion pocket camera: it is 40 times the number of film cameras sold in the best years. People all over the world will take more than 1 trillion pictures this year.