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

Shrinking Camera Market
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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

Canon Knows Phones Are Cutting Camera Profits, Other Segments Perform Well

Canon Rumors Color Calibration
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Canon is set to cut profit outlook as smartphone photography is sacking camera market profits. But Canon isn’t just investing in consumer imaging products.

Nikkei Asian Review reports not only that Canon’s mirrorless offerings are currently one of the company’s more successful products, they also remind us that Canon isn’t just a consumer camera company.

Nikkei (emphasis mine):

Canon is expected to downgrade its earnings guidance for 2019, Nikkei has learned, with operating profit likely to fall short of the current forecast by about 50 billion yen ($447 million) as digital cameras lose ground to increasingly sophisticated smartphone cameras.

The Japanese company’s operating profit is on track to drop 20% to slightly above 270 billion yen, compared with the projected 325 billion yen. Sales for this year likely will undershoot the standing projection of 3.9 trillion yen as well.

Global shipments of digital cameras contracted by more than 20% last year, according to the Camera & Imaging Products Association, a Tokyo industry group. Canon’s digital camera sales are shrinking in the key market of China.

Read Nikkei’s report.

But Canon is alive and kicking (emphasis mine):

The company’s four new growth businesses have performed well, including the medical device unit acquired from Toshiba. Sales of security cameras in particular are projected to grow by more than 10%. New businesses are anticipated to produce 25% of the group’s full-year sales, up from 23% in 2018.

Yeah, Canon security cameras which according to a report are hidden in vacuum cleaners by the DEA.