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The Eastman Kodak Company, founded by George Eastman, devised and marketed the first simple camera in 1888. As time went on, Eastman incorporated the name Kodak as part of his product line, which included various film products (Kodachrome, Ektachrome, etc.). Later, his company turned out 35 mm format slides, 8 mm and 16 mm movie film, and a variety of projectors and cameras, for both professional and personal use.

Continuing with innovative and interesting products, Kodak also produced slide projectors, the Browning personal movie camera, and film-processing machines. Many Hollywood movie studios used Kodak film in their movies. By 1976, Kodak had 90% of the US camera film market. The peak revenue year for Kodak was 1996, with revenue of $16 billion. The company was traded on the stock exchange with a share price of $90. At that time, Kodak had two-thirds of the global film market. Employees peaked in 1988 with over 145,000 employees worldwide.

Kodak continued in their attempts to be innovative with digital cameras and the CD format for pictures, but each camera sold lost $60. In 2004, it was ejected from the Dow Jones stock exchange. As a side note, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is a stock index of the top 30 US corporations. On this note, Kodak closed many manufacturing plants and cut thousands of jobs.

Kodak worked to restructure its business, acquired several companies, and provided licensing which brought in much-needed revenue. In 2010, Kodak sued Apple over its iPhone technology, claiming a patent infringement, but did not prevail. By this point, employment was down to 18,000 employees. In 2012, the company filed for bankruptcy and sold its online photo business to Shutterfly.

Kodak was somewhat reluctant to move into digital photography as it did not involve the use of film. The company today provides traditional and digital printing, hardware, and software services to the print, packaging, publishing, manufacturing, entertainment, and film industries. The company’s four primary segments include advanced materials and chemicals.

At the time of writing (August 2021) Kodak’s stock price is $6.86 and the company has earnings of negative $400 million on revenue of $1.1 billion.⁶