That was the number for the North American market only.
The global market had its peak in 1999/2000 with about 3 billion rolls (source: Fujifilm Japan), and/or according to the PMA in 2001/2002 with about 3.5 billion rolls (including all formats and SUC). You will find this data in R. Shanebrooks book "Making Kodak Film" on page 267.
The GfK (big global market research company) published a number of 2.8 billion rolls for 1994/95.
This comment again demonstrates that you have no clue at all about this industry. For almost a decade now the global market research companies did not collect data anymore. And before that you had to pay lots of money for the data.
Now only the manufacturers, the distributors and small independent market researchers have the data (and we talked to them, not to "marketing people"). I've worked for decades as a professional photographer, lot's of excellent contacts remained.
Ilford e.g. had +9% in film sales in 2017, Kodak +5 to +20% depending on the market. Bergger had delivery problems because the batch of Pancro 400 IC made for them has been sold in only one year instaed of the expected two years. Fotoimpex explained they have double digit growth for years. Fujifilm Europe had massive film backorders, because demand surpassed supply in first half of 2018. Fujifilm introduced the new Maxima high-quality silver-halide paper at Photokina. JOBO is introducing new lab gear because of increasing demand (they were very satiesfied with demand from the Photokina, too). Just some examples from the last Photokina.
Again:
All the major companies in this industry have introduced new products, are currently working on new products and / or have started numerous marketing efforts. All very clear signs of the recent positive market change.
