Camera Sales May Be Stabilizing After a Few Years of Freefall
The camera market has been struggling in recent years, with Canon, Nikon, and Sony all recently reporting drops in camera demand from a year ago. But there may be a sliver of positive news for camera makers: sales appear to be stabilizing a bit after a few years of huge drops.
The chart is based on data published by CIPA, the Japan-based Camera & Imaging Products Association. Things are even more alarming for camera makers when smartphone sales are included in the chart.
Well, CIPA just published its latest camera shipment reports comparing 2013, 2014, and 2015, and it seems that things are dropping a lot less than before:
Mayflower published an updated chart back in September that seems to indicate a leveling out of the market:
There appears to be reason for reassurance, but “optimism” isn’t the right word yet, Mayflower writes. It points out that mirrorless camera sales have leveled out after two years of strong growth, and that they appeared to gain market share only at the expense of DSLR cameras. In other words, the camera market as a whole hasn’t benefited much from the rise of mirrorless.
Now we’ll just have to wait and see whether camera sales continue to hold steady at the same level as over a decade ago, or whether it starts trending upwards or downwards.
(via 43 Rumors and Mayflower Concepts)
Image credits: Header illustration based on photo by Kristoffer Trolle
