Skip to content

The Photography Industry in 2017 – What happened, what changed?

Our friends at LensVid posted their monitoring and analysis report about the state of the photography industry in 2017. They mined a lot of data to produce their figures.

LensVid’s conclusion:

Last year we predicted that it is likely that in 2017 we will see the global camera market go below 20 million units. We were wrong. Instead, the market jumped to 25 million units which means that we still have something to learn about the fundamental changes that the market is going through.

Beyond that, it is also unclear why the compact camera market saw an increase in 2017 or what cameras were mainly responsible for this surprising boost.

What we would be willing to risk speculating about is the DSLR vs. mirrorless part of the market. So far the DSLR segment of the market has been in a steady decline for at least six years. The mirrorless segment, on the other hand, was more or less stagnant but had a big increase of over 32% in 2017.  Even if we won’t see another huge increase in 2018 (and this actually might happen with the possible release of pro mirrorless models by both Canon and Nikon this year), the ratio of mirrorless to DSLR cameras out of the total interchangeable lens cameras, is going to increase and might be getting very close to a tie by the end of this decade. Read the report at LensVid.

The folks at LensVid found a slightly bizarre aspect in their data analysis. There are now more compact cameras manufactured compared to 2016. They didn’t found any apparent reason to explain this. This could either be attributed to Sony (maybe the RX100?) or to some huge success of one of Canon’s new compact cameras that we missed to get aware of. What do you think? Sound off in the comment section.

The 5min video below sums up everything.

If you want, you can check LensVid’s analysis of the photography industry in the previous 4 years.

[via LensVid]
Back To Top

Notice

This website or its third-party tools use cookies, which are necessary to its functioning and required to achieve the purposes illustrated in the cookie policy. If you want to know more or withdraw your consent to all or some of the cookies, please refer to the cookie policy.
By closing this banner you agree to the use of cookies.