Canon Had the Top Camera Market Share in 2024
Among Japanese camera manufacturers, Canon sold the most cameras in 2024. Furthermore, in good news for the camera industry overall, nearly every manufacturer sold more cameras in 2024 than in 2023.
In the newly published Nikkei Industry Map 2026, reported by Sony Alpha Rumors, Nikkei breaks down market share for each of the major Japanese camera manufacturers. This means there are some limitations to the data worth considering, although none of them render the data useless. The Nikkei Industry Map encompasses companies listed in the Nikkei 225, which measures the performance of 225 substantial, publicly owned Japanese companies across a diverse range of industries.
Therefore, no European companies, such as Leica or Hasselblad, are included. And no Sigma either, as it is not a publicly traded Japanese company.
With that caveat out of the way, the Nikkei Industry Map is a reliable, annually published breakdown of the performance of nearly every major Japanese camera company, providing a rare and valuable look at the industry’s health and how many of the major players are performing year-over-year.
Like it did in 2023, Canon held the top market share in 2024 for all digital camera sales. However, while Canon’s overall sales increased from 3.34 to 3.53 million units, its percentage share dipped slightly, from 46.5% in 2023 to 43.2% in 2024.
Sony remained in second place, increasing its unit sales from two million to 2.33 million and its share from 27.9 to 28.5%. Sony certainly wins when it comes to image sensor manufacturing, though, as Nikkei reports Sony has a 51.6% market share in the global CMOS market, way ahead of Samsung in second place at 15.4%.
Nikon sat again in a distant third, but increased its sales by a healthy 18.5%. Nikon sold 810,000 units in 2023 but 960,000 in 2024, while also increasing its share from 11.3 to 11.7%. Considering that Nikon is a significantly smaller company than Canon or Sony, these are very impressive results and reflect Nikon’s excellent work clawing itself back from the brink a few years ago.
The company in fourth place is the most interesting of them all: Fujifilm. The company, which seems like it just cannot miss lately, increased its unit sales from 430,000 in 2023 to 740,000 last year. Its market share increased from 6% to 9% as well.
Rounding out the list of seven camera companies are Panasonic (280,000 units / 3.4% share), OM Digital (160,000 / 1.9%), and Ricoh Imaging (70,000 / 0.8%). OM Digital was the only company on the list to experience a decrease in unit sales from 2023 to 2024. However, given that the company released two exciting cameras so far this year, the OM-3 and OM-5 Mark II, it is a reasonably safe bet the company may fare better this year than last.
Although there is some slight rounding involved, the total number of camera unit sales in 2024, according to the Nikkei Industry Map, is approximately 8.7 million. To lend some credence to the numbers, if any was needed, this is not significantly far off the 8.37 million units of digital camera shipments that CIPA reported earlier this year. Like Nikkei’s data, CIPA only examines Japanese companies, and it may capture a slightly different cohort than Nikkei does.
Where the two industry analysts agree is that digital camera shipments increased from 2023 to 2024, which CIPA noted was the first time that happened since 2017. While total camera shipments are a fraction of what they were 15 years ago, before smartphones arrived in full force, interchangeable lens cameras have remained reasonably popular and appear to be on the rise again. That is, unless tariffs ruin everything. They haven’t yet, but there are significant concerns in the industry.
Image credits: Featured image created using an asset licensed via Depositphotos.
