History

1973: Repco Canon Pty Ltd, a joint venture between Canon Inc., Repco, and researcher Donald Daw, commenced trading in Australia to import, sell, and prepare to manufacture Canon photocopiers in the region.

1976: The company was renamed from Repco Canon to Canon Copier Australia, and it became a direct sales and service company for Canon photocopiers.

1978: Canon Australia was then established as a separate company for Canon cameras, typewriters, faxes and computers, and it ran alongside Canon Copier Australia.

1984: Canon Australia and Canon Copier Australia joined forces to became Canon Australia Pty Ltd, beginning our journey as one. We moved our headquarters from Melbourne to New South Wales in the same year.

1987: The Canon EOS 650, Canon’s very first EOS SLR camera was launched. This was the launch of EOS, a camera system that would become the foundation of our autofocus (AF) SLR, and eventually dSLR, cameras. This camera also featured the newly-developed EF mount. EF standing for electro focus and emphasised the adoption of fully-electronic focusing technology.

1988: We launched a then-innovative way to support Australian businesses, Canon Finance Australia.

1989: Canon Australia reached across the Tasman to establish Canon New Zealand.

1991: We settled into Macquarie Park in Sydney, not far from where still call home today.

1995: We launched the Canon PowerShot 600, our first digital camera targeted to consumers, marking the start of our digital camera era.

1990s: We launched our iconic ‘You Can on a Canon’ jingle in our consumer print television commercials, which remains one of the most memorable Australian ads to this day.

2001: The Canon EOS 1D and 1Ds were launched in 2001 and 2002 respectively. Driving the popularity and superb image quality of these cameras was the large-area, high-sensitivity CMOS image sensors. The EOS-1Ds, which is equipped with a full-frame, 11.1 megapixel CMOS sensor was the first of its kind in the world.

2008: Canon EOS 5D Mark II was launched as the industry’s first SLR digital camera with full-HD video recording capability. This video camera facilitated the integration of video and still images. When paired with a large-aperture Canon EF lens, the 5D Mark II’s 35mm full-frame CMOS sensor enabled the capture of movie footage of a quality that surpassed that of large and costly dedicated motion picture cameras. This democratised storytelling and put more affordable, yet high-quality equipment in the hands of a wider range of filmmakers meaning more diverse stories could be told.

2014: We welcomed SUNSTUDIOS, a creative hub for professional photography, television and video production image makers. We also began the acquisition of Harbour IT, a leader in managed IT services, infrastructure, and Cloud technologies.

2015: we announced our acquisition of Converga, which specialised in business process outsourcing with a focus on digital document solutions.

2017: We completed the acquisition of Harbour IT. Harbour IT and Converga joined to form Canon Business Services ANZ, adding to our end-to-end business support. This also expanded our offering beyond Australia and New Zealand into the Philippines with Canon Business Services Centre Philippines.

2022: Satalyst joined us to enhance CBS’ security offerings.

2023: Today we employ more than 2,400 people in the region and we’re proud to support the community to run businesses and capture precious moments.

We shaped the last fifty years together and we will continue to advance the way all of us live and work together long into the future.