MUMBAI, NOV. 8:  Canon India’s pursuit to join the billion-dollar club has been delayed by another three years, impacted by the weak rupee and the overall slowdown in the economy. The Indian unit of Japan’s Canon Inc now expects its revenues to cross the $1-billion-mark in 2018, rather than the earlier expected 2015.

“The target line has now shifted. The rupee depreciation and the demand slowdown had its impact on the company, even though we did increase prices of some of our products,” Canon India Executive Vice-President Alok Bharadwaj told Business Line.

The rupee has depreciated more than 14 per cent since the beginning of 2013. “Another reason is the technology shift that is happening, with smartphones increasingly serving the customer requirements of compact cameras,” Bharadwaj added.

Canon India expects to close this calendar year with revenues of Rs 1,868 crore, a meagre one per cent growth from 2012. Now with the rupee trending at 62 to the US dollar, it would have to post about Rs 6,200 crore in revenues by 2018.

BIG DRIVER

This year, the company’s inkjet printer business grew 25 per cent on unit basis, digital SLR camera business 15 per cent, enterprise printing machines 7 per cent and scanner business grew 13 per cent from last year.

In its run-up to the billion-dollar club, the company expects its business-to-consumer (B2C) segment – which now contributes about 54 per cent of its total revenues – to be the big driver.

This year, it had increased channel presence to reach more than 1,000 cities from the 600 earlier and it would continue to expand channel presence across smaller cities and towns.