<p>TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Canon Inc cut its profit forecast for the year to December and trimmed its sales targets for both high-end and compact digital cameras as a slowdown in China and other emerging economies caught the company off-guard.</p><p>Canon, the world's largest maker of digital cameras, kicked off the quarterly earnings reporting season for Japan's big-name tech manufacturers by cutting its operating profit forecast to 380 billion yen ($3.81 billion), down 16 percent from guidance issued just three months ago.</p><p>Canon and other Japanese camera makers have already been hit by a slump in sales of compact digital cameras as consumers increasingly use smartphones to snap photos and this has weighed on Canon's earnings and share price.</p><p>"We had expected that compact cameras would be bad, but it looks like the interchangeable-lens cameras they'd been pinning their hopes on also don't seem to be selling like they'd expected in China and other emerging economies," said Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management in Tokyo.</p><p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/24/us-canon-earnings-slowdown-idUSBRE96N09220130724">Keep reading...</a></p>