CIPA data for 2020: Digital Camera Sales Collapse accelerated

[Out to Lunch]

5G will radically change the popular visual intake: photography will be replaced by video. We're not talking decades. It will happen within a few years from now. Cheers, OtL

 

[bcostin]

The market has hit a temporary technological plateau. The new features being added to cameras are cool but the buyers haven't noticed those features, don't want them yet. (I think some of the computational photography features seen on cell phones will probably be the next big sales driver.)

Meanwhile, economic reversals and uncertainty obviously discourage large purchases. And with limited photo opportunities in much of the world, photographers who drive the enthusiast and semi-pro markets don't have an excuse/incentive to invest in new equipment right now that they can't use.

This will pass - it always does - but it will take time. I expect that post-lockdown there will be a surge of new sales.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

I’ve long since ceased believing that the market is going to “turn around”. “Has it reached bottom yet?” Cue the post on saddles. Who knows. It is what it is. If you are a manufacturer you know what the data is and go forward with a mix of willpower and hope added to your existing infrastructure and cash on hand, but no manufacturer knows what their future is, though they all know what the possible futures are. And for some of them, there likely isn’t one. They’re aware. All they have for their product planning is this recurring and ever advancing CIPA data, and more exactly like it, and their “market research” which has always and everywhere been, and will always be, notoriously unreliable as a predictor of trends. No matter what the MBA’s (Mediocre But Arrogant) say. So, they’re guessing, just like us, but with better information and more knowledge. I know we all think we can run multinational corporations, it’s fun to think that, but there’s probably a reason we don’t. Most likely several. (“You all should make an inexpensive rangefinder, that would turn this all around, there’s a big market for that!” Er, no, there isn’t.)

Most photography has always been normal people taking mediocre, but personally gratifying, snapshots with their cheap film, then cheap digital, cameras. Now, understandably, they use phones where the camera is essentially a free feature, and the good ones are now really good. Professional or “art” photographers were never the clientele that supported the huge camera industry, they’ve always been nothing more than lampreys that were attached to the hull of the moving ship, they didn’t move the ship. Grandma and grandpa and little Jane’s Instamatic moved the ship. They’ve moved on, the ship is becalmed, and the lampreys are both nervous, and prey to wild ideas about the future, a future where they alone can move the ship. Contrary to the sheriff in “Jaws”, for us it’s now become “We’re gonna need a smaller boat!”

If I were predicting based on current realities, and why not, I’d predict a continuation of the death spiral resulting in eventual fewer players who have only remained standing because they moved upmarket, yep, bells and whistles and/or luxury branding, as far away from the phone, easy and cheap, gestalt as is humanly possible. Leica, almost alone, seems to make money, and it’s not because they have the “best” cameras, it’s because they charge “ridiculous prices” for the cameras and lenses they do have. Maybe not so ridiculous after all. So maybe the future is only Leica and Sony, maybe Fuji, maybe not. It’s unknowable.

But, the CIPA figures, the quarterly earnings reports come out and, as they say, “The dogs bark and the caravan moves on.”
Ancient saying of unknown peoples without college educations who managed to understand a great deal about the world notwithstanding. Maybe more.
It ürür, kervan yürür rhymes in Turkish, so maybe that’s where it comes from.

I probably don’t need any more coffee.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

?...<snip>


This will pass - it always does - but it will take time. I expect that post-lockdown there will be a surge of new sales. ...<snip>

OMG, a surge. I love this, can I marry you? Would no doubt improve my outlook, if improve meant make rosier.
Meaning no disrespect, but “this will pass, it always does.” No. There is nothing that always does. There are instead those things that always do, until they don’t.
There is a societal inability for people to understand or even see the changes that are going around them, while in the midst of those changes, most especially when those changes are very large, simply because they are so large and thus not “normal”. Our natural tendency is to believe that things that have always “been this way” will continue on indefinitely with a few adjustments here and there, possibly, but no one ever sees a sea change for what it is while it is occurring. Except the Jeremiahs, who don’t always get invited out to dinner. Because Debbie Downer.

There will perhaps be a hiccup, or a burp, I’d guess (just a guess nothing more) likely not even that, but there is not going to be any kind of surge that alters the basic direction. It’s become little more than gravity at this point.

 

[benlees]

The big camera makers definitely got caught out by cell phones, and by implication the use of advanced tech. Right now they are just cobbling together bell and whistles, and seemingly not doing any serious r and d. For now, the physics of optics is on their side: bigger is better. As seen in the trend towards awkwardly large and fast lenses, and larger sensors, they are grasping desperately to Ms. Physics. If Apple or Samsung can solve the problems of diffraction and dynamic range (and perhaps good zooming) then there will only be massive 'pro' zoom lenses, and nostalgic throwbacks like Leica, left to hoover up the disposable income of those who still care.

 

[JeffS7444]

As Larry Cloetta notes, the future can't necessarily be extrapolated from historical data, but I think one possible future is one Sony already hints at, of fewer products with longer product cycles. And is that necessarily a bad thing if existing cameras and lenses are "good enough", and people are keeping theirs longer? (I note that Sony's A6000 still appears to be in production nearly 7 years since it was first introduced!) You might even think of the trend as being towards anti-obsolescence. And hasn't the notion of digital cameras that last as long as their film predecessors been a popular wish around here?

 

[PKR]

Name a multinational quality film camera company (maybe Nikon and Leica, but even they have pretty much stopped). Instant cameras are an exception.

Most digital camera users don't print. The instant cameras deliver a print, something that's new and unique to many phone camera and "normal" digital camera users.

Many of these people are the same people who, don't know that cows have any involvement in a cheeseburger.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Thread with common sense been lost.

Sports, weddings, events, gatherings and travels were canceled in 2020.
Who would need new camera these days?
Ah, gearheads who are buying not because they are needed, but because they wanted.

So, those numbers are good numbers. Decline shows here are some photogs still left.

One of our daughters took some of my film cameras, BTW. 🙂 .

 

[jsrockit]

Who would need new camera these days?
Ah, gearheads who are buying not because they are needed, but because they wanted.

Didn’t you buy a Canon RP this past year?

 

[aizan]

The survival or death of a brand is interesting for its users, but I’m more interested in how the companies try to survive. Will they finally break their conservative corporate culture and outdated strategies? Are they going to really innovate rather than make incremental improvements? Will cameras become CPM?

 

[sooner]

Without disagreeing with the downward trend, I do think this year was especially bad on sales because a lot of people buy a dslr before a big trip (cruise, Euro vacay, etc.), so that didn't happen much. Demography is destiny, also, and baby boomers checking out will hurt sales of slr's versus the younger cellphone camera crowd--though increasing numbers of film users are young. Cellphone cameras are about to get pretty amazing. I can't believe we aren't seeing more traditional cameras incorporating some of the AI tech making the cellphones so neat. Surely that's the next evolution?

 

[das]

I agree that the AI thing is the future. How much better can 35mm-equivalent optics get? Physical optics really have nowhere to go but incremental improvements. When cell phones can do a good job of imitating a full range of normal zoom functions -- like from 21mm to 100mm plus macro, it will pretty much be game over for any consumer level DSLR or mirrorless. The AI automatic retouches, sharpening, color balancing, and distortion corrections that iPhones and new Androids perform are far more desirable and easier than laboring with LR and PS. And they will only get better.

Without disagreeing with the downward trend, I do think this year was especially bad on sales because a lot of people buy a dslr before a big trip (cruise, Euro vacay, etc.), so that didn't happen much. Demography is destiny, also, and baby boomers checking out will hurt sales of slr's versus the younger cellphone camera crowd--though increasing numbers of film users are young. Cellphone cameras are about to get pretty amazing. I can't believe we aren't seeing more traditional cameras incorporating some of the AI tech making the cellphones so neat. Surely that's the next evolution?

 

[Pál_K]

But, the CIPA figures, the quarterly earnings reports come out and, as they say, “The dogs bark and the caravan moves on.”
Ancient saying of unknown peoples without college educations who managed to understand a great deal about the world notwithstanding. Maybe more.
It ürür, kervan yürür rhymes in Turkish, so maybe that’s where it comes from.
...

< digression alert!>

The other half of my family is Syrian and I’ve known that phrase for a long time. It is,

الكلاب تنبح و القافلة تسير

and has the exact same meaning, often given with a shrug and wave of dismissal.

 

[dourbalistar]

I wonder how camera manufacturers thrived back when production cycles were much longer. These days, it's not uncommon for new digital camera releases annually, albeit with incremental improvements. Compare that to something like the Nikon FM2 which had a nearly 20 year production run. Maybe durable consumer goods were actually made to be durable, instead of made with planned obsolescence?

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Didn’t you buy a Canon RP this past year?

July 2020. Not because I needed, but because I want it. Totally gearheading.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

< digression alert!>

The other half of my family is Syrian and I’ve known that phrase for a long time. It is,

الكلاب تنبح و القافلة تسير

and has the exact seem meaning, often given with a shrug and wave of dismissal.

Thanks for the digression. But, just curious, does it rhyme in Syriac? I guess that’s Syriac, but that script is well out of my comfort zone. 🙂

 

[jsrockit]

July 2020. Not because I needed, but because I want it. Totally gearheading.

Ah ok, you were including yourself... 🙂

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Ah ok, you were including yourself... 🙂

I doubt I ever mentioned here doing weddings or any paid photography. I'm not this good ... In sales 🙂 Just volunteering and goofing around with all kinds of cameras.

 

[jsrockit]

I doubt I ever mentioned here doing weddings or any paid photography. I'm not this good ... In sales 🙂 Just volunteering and goofing around with all kinds of cameras.

I don’t make much money either...i sell prints occasionally... but photography gives me a lot of satisfaction.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I don’t make much money either...i sell prints occasionally... but photography gives me a lot of satisfaction.

Pressing button and getting picture as result of it is my biggest personal achievement so far! The rest was not by myself only.