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Just FYI:
And some background info by me:
The boom in instax film demand has been really huge - permanent growth since 2004 !! For 19 years. That is really outstanding and unique not only in the photography market, but generally in economic history.
Nevertheless if I look at the current market - even calculating future growth - it is very unlikely that it is so huge that it is surpassing the max. coating capacity of the Fujifilm coating machine. The coating machines of Fujifilm, Kodak, Ilford, Foma, Inovisproject (daughter of Polaroid producing the CN film base) are so big that max. production capacity in shift-operation is many, many times the current market volume.
Therefore I have severe doubts that Fujifilm has currently a bottleneck in coating capacity. The bottleneck is most probably the finishing/confectioning capacity which must be increased.
The finishing of instax films is indeed running at full capacity in 3-shift (24/7 operation) for quite some time now (several years). Fujifilm has indeed reached a limit here and must invest further in significantly increased capacities.
Best regards,
Henning
Fujifilm Invests $30M to Boost Instax Film Production by 20%
The increased production will peak starting in 2025.
And some background info by me:
The boom in instax film demand has been really huge - permanent growth since 2004 !! For 19 years. That is really outstanding and unique not only in the photography market, but generally in economic history.
Nevertheless if I look at the current market - even calculating future growth - it is very unlikely that it is so huge that it is surpassing the max. coating capacity of the Fujifilm coating machine. The coating machines of Fujifilm, Kodak, Ilford, Foma, Inovisproject (daughter of Polaroid producing the CN film base) are so big that max. production capacity in shift-operation is many, many times the current market volume.
Therefore I have severe doubts that Fujifilm has currently a bottleneck in coating capacity. The bottleneck is most probably the finishing/confectioning capacity which must be increased.
The finishing of instax films is indeed running at full capacity in 3-shift (24/7 operation) for quite some time now (several years). Fujifilm has indeed reached a limit here and must invest further in significantly increased capacities.
Best regards,
Henning