Bandar Seri Begawan - Brunei may not be a big market but it's very interesting to see people in the country very acceptable to new technologies and ideas.

The unique Brunei market for Canon was described by Mr Kensaku Konishi, the CEO and President of Canon Singapore Pte Ltd, who oversees 13 other countries besides Brunei in the Southeast Asia region.

Last year Canon has achieved an unprecedented growth of 30 to 50 per cent in the Brunei market from photocopier machines to cameras and printers.

The CEO and President of Canon Singapore Pte Ltd said, "We are No 1 or 2 in Brunei in various products like copiers, printers, cameras and others. Brunei is a unique market compared to other countries in the region. We can try to introduce new technologies here."

The sole distributor of the Canon products in Brunei Darussalam, Interhouse Company, "is a value added partner of not only moving products around but also creates good relationship with the local market as well as the people here. They also build good relationship with important customers between business-to-business as well as business-to-consumer".

In terms of research and development, he said, "Canon has always spent eight to nine per cent of its consolidated worldwide sales into research and development. Due to huge amount of investment in R and D, we have always been in top three among the US patent registration for the past 20 years," he said.

Every year "we launch around 100 new products worldwide. Canon will be launching a new camera model in the coming months which will be a good hit in Brunei".

Mr Kensaku Konishi was in Brunei last week to take a closer look and analyse Brunei's market and opportunities.