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Insight No.4 |

The film company that survived by letting go of film

Not just a company that makes film. FUJIFILM

The film company that survived by letting go of film 'FUJIFILM'
essence: It let go of the form of its business first, but it survived because it kept its technology. A company that knows what to let go and what to keep can survive a crisis.
See all 10 slides on Instagram@nonscale_official(opens in a new tab)

A film company making cosmetics and medical equipment? 🎞️Fujifilm (@fujifilmkr_x)

In 2000, when digital cameras arrived, the film market collapsed.
The question Fujifilm asked for 18 months was simple.
Besides film, what are we good at? The answer was unexpected.
Cosmetics, LCD coatings, healthcare.

Film is 20 ultra-thin layers of collagen.
The UV antioxidant technology developed to keep colors from fading became anti-aging.
The coating used to spread photographic film thin became film for LCD displays and took 70% of the global market.
With film technology, the culmination of precision chemistry, it acquired pharmaceutical companies and built bio-medical equipment. That now makes up a third of its revenue.

The technology that made film became cosmetics, became displays, became medical equipment.
A company that knows what to keep survives a crisis.

essence

It let go of the form of its business first,but it survived because it kept its technology.A company that knows what to let go and what to keepcan survive a crisis.

what's your nonscale?

Fujifilm kept only its technology and took out the film. Is what we do well the same as the product we sell today? 🤨

#fuji #후지 #후지필름 #후지필름카메라 · Where it happened: FUJIFILM

11 references · photo credits
  1. Shigetaka Komori, 『Innovating Out of Crisis』 (Stone Bridge Press, 2015)
  2. PetaPixel, “Why Kodak Died and Fujifilm Thrived: A Tale of Two Film Companies” (2022)
  3. Forbes, “How Kodak Failed” (2012)
  4. Nippon.com, “Fujifilm Finds New Life in Cosmetics”
  5. FUJIFILM, “ASTALIFT”
  6. Quartr, “The Dilemma That Brought Down Kodak” (2025)
  7. StartupTalky, “Kodak vs. Fujifilm: The Survival Story Every Business Must Know” (2025)
  8. EMULSIVE, “Fujifilm: put down your pitchforks, it’s survival of the fittest” (2019)
  9. CNN, “How instax took over the world” (2025)
  10. FUJIFILM, “instax™ Cumulative Sales Exceeds 100 Million Units” (2025)
  11. Digital Camera World, “The curious tale of how Fujifilm Instax cameras survived a brutal patent war to become an instant success” (2026)

Photo credits · 01·09 fujifilm-korea.co.kr · 02 wikipedia Canon Digital IXUS · 03·10 fujifilm-x.com · 04 astalift.com.sg · 05 자체제작 Ai이미지 사용 · 06 healthcaresolutions-us.fujifilm.com · 07 https://www.fujifilm-korea.co.kr/ · 08 instax.com