In Japan, Fujifilm have notified customers in their domestic market that they have stopped taking orders for most of their remaining range of colour 35mm and 120 negative and reversal films for an unspecified duration.
They attribute the problem to a shortage of raw materials in the supply chain and promise everyone that they will let everyone know when we they will resume accepting orders. Mind you the last set of films this happened to they never did resume accepting orders for them and this seems to be an approach for Fujifilm discontinuing stuff, so we shall see. The website announcement can be found here.
No mention is made of what's happening to international orders but past performance would indicate that there will be silence until any existing stockpiles of product have been sold through so as not to disturb the market. But there again we shall see.
So maybe it is time for a rebranding/corporate name change as it really is FujiFILM no more? The big yellow box film company must be laughing their socks off as they are about to fully inherit the resurgent analogue film market. It is especially ironic as at one time Fujifilm's company mission statement was, "Kill Kodak" and they so very nearly succeeded.
There is one major concern in all this; good old Kodak. The stills film market is only viable for them as it is an adjunct to the giant movie film market. If movie makers stop using film to make their movies then that's the end of Kodak film and with it film for stills cameras. It is not a comfortable place to reside in. There again maybe this really is just a temporary pause in production by Fujifilm and it will all resume again soon; yeah and pigs might fly!