Canon confirms: We're not stopping DSLR's and EF lenses, surprising no one.

A news article from late last year got extremely misquoted and misinterpreted, where Fujio Mitarai stated that the 1DX Mark III is Canon's last flagship DSLR, to one in which people were assuming that Canon stated there's no more DSLR's coming at all and they were shutting it all down.

Let's be honest, the original news article actually stated;

Demand for beginner and intermediate SLR cameras is strong overseas, so we plan to continue development and production for the time being.

But that's boring news I guess.

Anyways, At PhotosWebExpo, Canon clarified this statement from Fujio Mitarai, and while this is from Canon Russia - a group I've never held in high esteem, all it does is really confirm what the original news article stated.  (Machine Translated)

Mr. Mitarai commented that the EOS-1DX Mark III will be the last of Canon's flagship DSLRs as the company focuses on developing mirrorless cameras. This comment is correct. At the same time, some publications interpreted Mitarai's words as meaning that Canon had officially announced the end of all of its SLR camera lines, however, Mitarai's words were only about the flagship line of SLR cameras.

In an interview, Mr. Mitarai said, “Market needs are shifting towards mirrorless cameras at an ever-increasing pace. We are recruiting more and more people to follow this trend.” We will continue to bring both DSLRs and mirrorless cameras to the market - a discontinuation date for this model ( EOS-1D X Mark III ) has yet to be determined and will reflect customer needs and market prospects.

I mean this should come as no surprise to anyone.  When you control literally 50% of the entire camera market, you don't all of a sudden decide not to sell something that is selling, whether that be EF DSLR cameras or EOS-M cameras. You sell cameras into the markets in which they are selling until the consumers tell you differently.  If you only have 10% of the market, sure, ditching DSLRs probably won't hurt you. 

Do you, as a company want everyone on your newest and greatest mount where the profits are higher? You bet. Do you "encourage" users to switch? At every turn.  But you certainly don't decide to drop your highly valued market share down by ditching product lines.