CIPA: Camera sales numbers

S

Skiff

Well-known
Local time
1:17 AM
Joined
Jun 4, 2012
Messages
1,114
View My Gallery
The CIPA, organization of Japanese camera manufacturers, has recently published sales data for digital cameras for the last 12 months.
Sales fall from 13,57 million cams in Sept. 2011 to only
7,43 million in Sept. 2012.
A general decrease of almost 50% in only one year.
Digital compact cameras suffered most with a decrease of - 52%.
DSLRs have a decrease of - 9%.
Demand for CSC (mirrorless compact system cams) also decreased. They lost market share in their major market Japan and got from 46% market share to now 40% market share.
In USA ,Europe and Asia they have never been so popular like in Japan with a market share in the 12 (USA) -20% (Asia) range.
http://www.cipa.jp/english/data/dizital.html
 
The Rise of the Smartphones.

And, the Rise of the Quality Sensors. Less reason to replace the old model with a new one.

Not to mention, shaky world economy.
 
Smart Phone HD Video...is now next Gen Camera

Smart Phone HD Video...is now next Gen Camera

The reason that traditional camera sales are down so drastically is best seen a recent TV commercial. A husband and wife just returned from a daughters dance performance. Father says" look honey, I have the whole thing in HD Video and we can watch it and ......wait for it ....pick out the 1 or 2 best photos from the video and then just print the our selves and then we can "share" this with all our friends on the web instantly...isnt that great.

We dont even need a camera anymore !

Now...for the vast majority of people the cameras on today's smart phones, iPhones, and many tablets and iPads is better than the digital point and shoot that they currently own. And it's a phone, movie screen, game controller, email, and online shopping tool. The traditional DSLR or other fancy digital camera is no longer a value added product. It is now part of the "stone age" of digital history.

The camera companies are very close to losing the entire camera market to the smart phone or similar device that can multi task....the camera takes a picture....big deal ! consumers have moved on. Camera companies are stuck in the past. Sony could turn into the best example of leader that vanished while making one of the best DSLR cameras in production today! Not mention TV's, computers and so many other products that now being no longer selling.

Money is tight around the world and value is the name of the game...prices have to come down for consumers to spend money on a product that only does a single task....when everything in the electronic world is doing 4 or 5 for less money !!
 
I agree with your points, other than a decline because money is tight. Consumers seem to be spending record amounts on stuff. Happy times are here again.

The cellphone will gut the middle and low end of the camera market.
 
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126539

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126539

It comes as no surprise! Wherever i shoot at gatherings, parades, events or with friends, the camera-phones, smartphones are there. Neither film nor digital. See, well you can't help but see, the DSLR with those huge lenses, sometimes riding like the Space shuttle, on top, a strobe unit. i also noticed, in way fewer numbers, but like a gathering storm, pads, slate laptop computers used as cameras.
Last Sunday, at Photographic Show, a guy selling a NEW in the boxes, "small display unit" that accepts I think 2GB of Data, with rechargeable battery,USB connections all for $20.
The constant introduction of newer "better" cameras as with computers and downloads, is not going to make a loyal customer!
I am one of the very few in the Galaxy that does NOT have a cell phone/mobile. i think i will be forced to get one..
THE DSLR sales and esp the compact cameras will continue to be discounted! The inventory is sitting. It is not only a weakening economy.:bang:
 
so few photographers

so few photographers

and so many camera buyers.
I do not know many people who are interested in the pictures they make. Marketing makes them buy cameras, but not one every three years.

The market has been blown up and now it is shrinking. I don't know how they want to get out of that.
 
wow...i thought film was making a come-back....."

I think a lot of folks are just looking for something to do these days. So they mess around with stuff. Perhaps there is something existential about film. 🙄
 
larmarv916 said:
The reason that traditional camera sales are down so drastically is best seen a recent TV commercial. A husband and wife just returned from a daughters dance performance. Father says" look honey, I have the whole thing in HD Video and we can watch it and ......wait for it ....pick out the 1 or 2 best photos from the video and then just print the our selves and then we can "share" this with all our friends on the web instantly...isnt that great.

We dont even need a camera anymore !

Now...for the vast majority of people the cameras on today's smart phones, iPhones, and many tablets and iPads is better than the digital point and shoot that they currently own. And it's a phone, movie screen, game controller, email, and online shopping tool. The traditional DSLR or other fancy digital camera is no longer a value added product. It is now part of the "stone age" of digital history.

The camera companies are very close to losing the entire camera market to the smart phone or similar device that can multi task....the camera takes a picture....big deal ! consumers have moved on. Camera companies are stuck in the past. Sony could turn into the best example of leader that vanished while making one of the best DSLR cameras in production today! Not mention TV's, computers and so many other products that now being no longer selling.

Money is tight around the world and value is the name of the game...prices have to come down for consumers to spend money on a product that only does a single task....when everything in the electronic world is doing 4 or 5 for less money !!
Click to expand...

The fall in sale of DSLRs is an indication that video is also not doing so well. Even smart phone apps for photography are in bad shape with Hipstamatic laying of staff recently.

It seems to me that people are satiated with visual imagery in both still and video format, there is just too much visual data out there, freely available and most of it of very high quality.

The need for visual documentation in both still and video format is met by crowd sourcing through social media. If one really wants a certain picture one can find it for free, video the same way.

The sad thing is that photographs and video have become a trivial thing, taken for granted because its production has been made very easy by technology. Here is a very good panel discussion related to this issue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR5A6XtHtdE .
 
Probably there are just so many buyers who already have a quality digital and do not want (need?) to upgrade ever so often.

Also, I am not sure of the other markets, but the equipment prices have gone up very steeply here in India this year. Some very basic Canon lenses (like 70-300 IS zoom or 100mm f/2.8 etc) now cost 200%-300% of what they were 2-2.5 years ago. If this is the case in some other markets as well, it could contribute to the slump as well.
 
Skiff said:
Demand for CSC (mirrorless compact system cams) also decreased. They lost market share in their major market Japan and got from 46% market share to now 40% market share.[/URL]
Click to expand...

SLR and Compact camera units shipped world-wide are both relatively stable numbers. As they've only started splitting out the "non-reflex" compact system camera numbers as of this year, who can tell what is growth and what is seasonal impact not to mention new product release dates - there'll be many more new compact camera releases in any given year than major SLR releases.

Inexpensive fixed lens compacts are where the big variability lies.

While sales compact cameras are a fairly small fraction of SLR sales, they carry a fairly high value per unit. Hopefully there is sufficient return on investment to justify continued development of advanced compact "non reflex" cameras, fixed lens or otherwise.

And which bucket will the $2,800 USD RX1 land in? Fixed lens? Maybe there won't be enough units shipped to seriously skew the numbers but I'd imagine that category is going to see a value per unit increase for a couple of months. 😉

Here's a chart comprised of world-wide shipment data from all reported months this year so far:
japanese-camera-shipments-value.jpg
 
Today's current photography popularity might not be the 'in' thing for laymen tomorrow.

I believe that these falling sales figures may be due to market saturation, as well as a possible downtrend on the photography 'fad'.
 
In retrospect, the (very) smartphone was inevitable.
I can imagine an evolution now with accessories, attachments, adding onto the size of these devices, feeding peoples' needs for more stuff that does more things.
The do-it-all gizmo and attachments will hang on a strap and be about the size of an X100 is my guess.

Maybe Fuji, Nikon, etc should work backwards and just add phone-calling capability to their cameras.
 
Just shows to go you how photographers who strive to earn a living in this profession, need amongst other basic business qualities, that an understanding of posing, lighting, composition and rapport with clients are ever more necessary in today's society.

Interesting side note that, when folks relinquished control to mother nature with the recent hurricanes, one of the most treasured items taken with them, when evacuating, were memories depicted in their photographs.
 
How will they hold up?

How will they hold up?

I went through my Dads stuff after he passed over He used a Brownie Hawkeye, when I was young (my first camera) until winning a Top of the line
Polaroid-Land camera. The only thing is that even though he used it exclusively during the late '50's -60's and 70's -- it was HIS camera- until on retirement, He purchased a new camera, a Minolta Maxxum 5000. I noted the lack of Polaroids in his collection. Lots of little square Kodak prints , lot's of SLR shots but the others just didn't hold up. Too bad the Land was a wonder. Take a shot, pull it out, open it up and squidgy some wet stuff on and wait 60 long seconds to watch the picture appear. For the time it all happened😉 so-o-oo fast, but its the brownies and Minolta shots that stood the test of time. Makes me wonder how the digital's will hold up .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom