cipa

A graph showing the number of photos over time from 1951 to 2023. It features a sharp increase in digital photos since the early 2000s, peaking around 2012, and a decline afterward. An icon of a camera and smartphone is overlaid on the left side of the graph.

The Rise and Crash of the Camera Industry in One Chart

The digital camera industry has endured a lot of changes over the years and is currently at the tail of a huge collapse that is tied directly to the proliferation of smartphones. A new chart that uses data from camera shipments shows just how stark the difference has been between the highs and lows over the last 70 years.

2022 Was Officially the Year of the Mirrorless Camera

Camera manufacturers have long told us that the future was mirrorless and - as if there was any doubt - Canon and Nikon even joined the party as far back as 2018, yet compact cameras and DSLRs have stubbornly refused to die. With 2022 well and truly over, we can now safely say that it was the year of the mirrorless camera and this marks some profound changes across the board for the industry as a whole.

Mirrorless Continues Its Inexorable Rise At the Expense of the DSLR

The death of the DSLR was always in the cards - as soon as Nikon and Canon entered the mirrorless fray in 2018 it was not a case of if, but when. However, what was perhaps not expected was the rapidity with which the sales rug would be pulled from beneath DSLR consumers' feet. It's all or nothing when it comes to mirrorless.

Falling Camera

Why 2022’s Falling Camera Sales Shouldn’t Worry You

The year 2020 saw digital camera shipments nosedive to a new low of 8.9 million units, down from 121 million units in 2010. It was believed it couldn't get any worse and, indeed, shipments stabilized in 2021. So why do sales appear to be in free-fall again?

The Camera Sales Forecast for 2022 Isn’t as Bad as CIPA Makes it Sound

The news of falling camera shipments is like the dripping of a faucet. It comes with a regular, steady, beat, and just when you think it has stopped... plink, there it goes again! So perhaps it's no surprise that CIPA -- the trade body for manufacturers -- has a downbeat forecast for 2022, but strangely seems to have missed the good news!

2020 CIPA Figures Confirm the Expected: It Was a Rough Year

CIPA, the Camera and Imaging Products Association, has published its final report of camera sales and volume for 2020 and the numbers confirm what was expected: the annual downward trend of the market has continued, with 2020's numbers further damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. But it's not all bad news.

Camera Sales in 2020 Have Plummeted As Much As 54%

The Camera and Imaging Products Association in Japan, otherwise known as CIPA, has published global camera and lens production data through September of this year, and the results show that the industry clearly has taken a hit from the global coronavirus pandemic.

2019 CIPA Figures Reveal a Rough End to a Terrible Decade for Camera Makers

CIPA—the Camera & Imaging Products Association—has released their December 2019 sales breakdown, rounding out a devastating decade for the camera industry with the worst overall year for camera sales yet. But while there's plenty of doom and gloom to go around, there's reason to be optimistic, too.

2017 Industry Figures Show Years Long Camera Sales Slump May be Ending

After years of declining sales figures and the requisite reporting on the industry's "imminent" collapse, it seems the camera market has finally plateaued. The latest CIPA numbers show modest growth in some areas and neutral numbers elsewhere, hinting that a long sales slump might finally be over.

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.

Crunching the Numbers: Four Insights We Can Glean from Camera Sales Data

With every passing year, the digital camera sales dataset offered by the Camera and Imaging Products Association (CIPA) grows more comprehensive. These records are made available to the public by this coalition of camera manufacturers which includes Nikon, Canon, Fujifilm, Sony, Sigma, Ricoh, Olympus, and dozens of other recognizable brands. Since 2002, they've been improving and increasing the scale of their database, which now separates digital cameras into fixed-lens, mirrorless and DSLR categories, and reports sales figures for different regions.

It sometimes seems that commentators are primarily interested in the CIPA data to prove just how far up a creek camera manufacturers are so far this decade. But these depressing pronouncements are just scratching the surface. Here's some other things the data shows:

Nikon Updates Vibration Reduction Stats to Comply With New Standard

This month, the Consumer & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) released a new standard to help make better sense of the world of image stabilization. Theoretically, the standard will make sure that all manufacturers test and report image stabilization statistics the same way, so you can better compare between lens brands.

And although we haven't heard anything from any other company, Nikon has already hopped aboard and released a list of CIPA-compliant numbers.