Smartphones Might Not Be The Only Reason For The Shrinking Camera Market

Shrinking Camera Market

Smartphones are usually seen and named as the culprit for the shrinking camera market. But there might be more.

Robin Wong discusses the shrinking camera market from a broader perspective, and identifies four reasons for it.

He says:

We can easily point the blame solely to the existence of smartphones, but that is not the only reason. I admit smartphone camera improving drastically over the years with the convenience of only carrying one device to do it all, there seems to be less reason to pick up a dedicated camera. I acknowledge that smartphones played a huge contributing factor to the shrinkage of the camera market overall, but in this I want to explore several other valid reasons why less and less people are buying cameras. 

The other reasons he identified are:

  1. Camera has hit sufficiency
  2. Interest in photography is dying
  3. Social media changed the landscape of photography
  4. Photography is stagnant

Camera Market Going To Shrink For Two More Years, Canon CEO Says

Canon Rumors Color Calibration

Fujio Mitarai, Canon chairman and CEO, says the camera market will not stop shrinking for the next two years.

In an interview with Japanese site NewsSwitch, Mr. Fujio Mitarai, discusses the state of the global camera market. Here a few (machine translated) excerpts:

Question: The digital camera business, which has long been a leader, is facing market contraction.

Answer: Compact digital cameras were sold at 114 million units in 2008, the peak year, but it was 10.5 million or less than one-tenth in 2008. Single-lens cameras also peaked at 18 million in 2012. In 18 years, the number of units decreased by almost half to 10.3 million units, and this trend will continue for another two years, both of which are prepared to fall to 5-6 million units. It ’s a change.

It seems that the recently started trade war between the US and China forces Canon to introduce some changes in their production system.

Question: Is it necessary to review the existing production system due to intensifying trade friction between the United States and China?

Answer: We have been reviewing it for some time. We have been focusing on reducing costs by using robots for production, focusing on Japan, and in-house production of robots and other equipment. The software development and re-education in the machine design field are completed, and when they are completed, overseas factories will not be necessary. 

You can read the machine translated interview here.

[via Digicame Info]

Last 12 Month’s Japanese Camera Market: Canon Top Dog But It’s Fuji Who Wins

BCNRetail posted the Japanese camera market shares from April 2018 to March 2019.

  • Canon did hold 37.3% of the overall camera market shares (fixed lens plus system cameras)
  • Nikon did hold 26,7% of the overall camera market shares
  • Sony did hold 13,1% of the overall camera market shares
  • Olympus did hold 6% of the overall camera market shares
  • Fuji did hold 5.8% of the overall camera market shares

Canon is still the top dog in the bunch. But things look differently when compared to the previous year:

  • Canon sold -1,3% cameras (units of sales)
  • Nikon sold -15% cameras
  • Sony sold -6,6% cameras
  • Olympus sold -13,8% cameras
  • Fuji sold +19,4% cameras

And an even more different picture is given by the overall value of camera sales:

  • Canon camera sales value dropped -11,4% 
  • Nikon camera sales value dropped -28,5% 
  • Sony camera sales value increased +14,5% 
  • Olympus camera sales value dropped -21,3% 
  • Fuji camera sales value increased +0,6%

Canon, Nikon and Olympus saw a huge drop in overall value of the sales. Fuji on the other hand is doing pretty good, having been able to sell 19.4% more cameras than the previous year.

[via Digicameinfo via Mirrorless Rumors]