Digital camera market is collapsing

[HHPhoto]

Hi,

the crisis in the digital camera market is increasing.
Instead of 90 million cameras like in 2012, in 2013 only 60 million cameras were sold.
This year there will be a further decline.

http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/webwe...hiessen-sich-marketingtechnisch-ins-Knie.html

Besides the strong decline in sales volume, there is also a decline in profit margins with most of the Japanese manufacturers.
Most of the digital camera manufacturers are having profitability problems.

Despite the general crisis, Leica did very well in comparison with a small 5% increase.

Cheers, Jan

 

[mfogiel]

Perhaps snappers are converging to smartphones, and photographers to film, but this hardly can increase new camera sales.

 

[jschrader]

Hi,

the crisis in the digital camera market is increasing.
Instead of 90 million cameras like in 2012, in 2013 only 60 million cameras were sold.
This year there will be a further decline.

That should not be a big surprise. Honestly, almost everybody has a reasonable camera, and newer models have marginal advantages.

Now and then, a camera dies and needs to be replaced, but that does not require 60 mio units per year

Needless to say, that is tough for the industry

 

[Keith]

I hold the smart phone entirely responsible for this trend ... it's hard to think any other way. Why buy a real camera any more?

 

[cz23]

Probably another factor is that, with the short life cycles of digital cameras, there is a huge inventory of quality used gear available at incredible prices. I had always bought new, but now find these half-priced bodies hard to resist.

John

 

[Harryo1962]

I am shocked at the quality of the images that come out of my smartphone. As long as there is enough light. That has to be having a huge effect on camera sales.
But my Fuji X100s takes the most amazing images, and there are so many cool old film cameras out there. It's a changing world for sure, but lots of photos are still being taken.

 

[ray*j*gun]

Phones are the new cameras and have also totally replaced wrist watches for most young people. "Hey Dad why carry all that stuff...." Lol.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I hold the smart phone entirely responsible for this trend ... it's hard to think any other way. Why buy a real camera any more?

Easy, Keith: to take real pictures.

(Sorry, but you asked for it.)

Cheers,

R.

 

[Keith]

Easy, Keith: to take real pictures.

(Sorry, but you asked for it.)

Cheers,

R.

Well ... it was a rhetorical question Roger! 😀

 

[daveleo]

That trend is no surprise, really.

 

[Dante_Stella]

The digital camera market is the camera market. I won't say it's necessarily the OP, but there is definitely a schadenfreude sentiment from film enthusiasts that fails to appreciate that (1) new film camera sales are already as close to zero as they can be and (2) the consumption of film is declining - not as quickly as in the mid-2000s, but enough that when separate digital cameras are in the ground, chemical won't be far behind.

Dante

 

[NY_Dan]

I think the market is as they say, correcting. The big word these days is "enthusiast." How many photography enthusiasts are there? 25 million? Whatever the number is, that and pros, and business will be the ones buying the latest and greatest.

One problem that I don't think was as prevalent in the past, are the number of manufacturers making high quality cameras -- and this might make it harder for the big two Canon and Nikon to stay profitable -- especially Nikon because Canon has so many other businesses. Leica of course offers less products, is smaller, and makes luxury products.

If I didn't need pro gear, then I would be tempted to own just one DSLR -- right now a Nikon 750, and a few Zeiss primes for it. For film I'd have a Nikon F100 and use the same Zeiss lenses, and I'd have a Rolleiflex 2.8f -- a scanner and printer, oh and 2 Billingham bags.

 

[Dave Jenkins]

Kirk Tuck wrote about this in August of 2013.
http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2013/08/has-bubble-burst-is-that-why-camera.html

 

[Highway 61]

Perhaps snappers are converging to smartphones, and photographers to film, but this hardly can increase new camera sales.

You're dreaming loud Marek. There aren't people "converging" to film, only people resisting the definite move to digital and still enjoying B&W film, for special reasons (I'm one of them and you know what those reasons are). If there were "photographers converging to film", the film market wouldn't be what it is, i.e., a dramatically shrinking B&W film market and a DOA C41 and E6 one.

I think the market is as they say, correcting. The big word these days is "enthusiast." How many photography enthusiasts are there? 25 million? Whatever the number is, that and pros, and business will be the ones buying the latest and greatest.

One problem that I don't think was as prevalent in the past, are the number of manufacturers making high quality cameras -- and this might make it harder for the big two Canon and Nikon to stay profitable -- especially Nikon because Canon has so many other businesses. Leica of course offers less products, is smaller, and makes luxury products.

If I didn't need pro gear, then I would be tempted to own just one DSLR -- right now a Nikon 750, and a few Zeiss primes for it. For film I'd have a Nikon F100 and use the same Zeiss lenses, and I'd have a Rolleiflex 2.8f -- a scanner and printer, oh and 2 Billingham bags.

Excellent points, hard to try to find other explanations.

 

[cz23]

I am shocked at the quality of the images that come out of my smartphone. As long as there is enough light. That has to be having a huge effect on camera sales.
But my Fuji X100s takes the most amazing images, and there are so many cool old film cameras out there. It's a changing world for sure, but lots of photos are still being taken.

You're one of the so-called "enthusiasts," but there simply are not enough of us to support the industry long-term. I know two or three other people who take photography seriously enough to spring for today's camera prices. For the rest it's smartphones. And they will just keep getting better.

Not a good time to be a camera OEM. Maybe Leica's luxury branding will turn out to be among the smartest business models.

John

 

[Aristophanes]

It's not collapsing. It is adjusting to three scenarios:

1) Smartphone cameras have replaced almost all P&S models. So the smartphone market IS the bulk of the camera market now. Sony Semi has done well here (even as the rest of the company founders).

2) The initial high volumes of the last decade were stoked by new tech, but as that has matured there is less demand to rollover for newer models. The market is now less driven by artificial obsolescence and more by actual chattel deterioration.

3) Many of the newer digital products are more robust and designed to last longer. Fuji's X-series comes to mind. Durability is improving.

There is no crisis. Toaster ovens came out and replaced a lot of toasters, but you can still get a really good toaster.

 

[doolittle]

I am not surprised looking at the differences in products and buzz between Photokina 2012 and 2014

- Advances in sensor technology between models often incremental or in some cases same sensor being used in newer models
- Same models still in line up (e.g. OMD-EM5)
- In 2012 Mirrorless was becoming a big thing (new market segment, new sales), now market has settled. I think action cameras (GoPro etc.), though around for a while, are one of the the next big becoming mainstream thing
- The cameras are so good now that there is less reason to upgrade. They do more than is required for most. The market is maturing.

 

[Mablo]

I tend to disagree with Dante. Digital camera market is completely independent from the (tiny) market of film photography. Managers of Ilford or Ferrania etc. couldn't care less of how many cameras CanoNikons of this world will sell per annum. Those figures won't touch them in the slightest way. So, as a film enthusiast and standing on the wrong side of history for many years, I'm fully entitled to my short moment of Schadenfreude.

 

[Duane Pandorf]

So how did camera companies make money before digital came into being? Looking back new camera models were not being updated every year or so and the lens lines either.

Today it seems the OEMs have been relying on consumers selling a year old or so camera to upgrade to the newest version. Not unlike the computer world.

Somehow I've been able to keep my last MacBook Pro for almost 6 years. I expect almost the same with my current model.

 

[kuuan]

During the first decade of digital cameras sensors used to clearly outperform those from the year before. Many users continued to 'upgrade' on almost a yearly basis. I don't know the numbers, but I'd think that in that period more cameras must have been sold than ever before.
Now technology doesn't make the same leaps any more. There is less reason to buy a new camera, just as it used to be in the film aera. Manufacturers made profits then, if they don't do now it mostly must be due to wrong decisions by the makers