The end of year report for Japanese camera sales in 2021 has been published, and it’s a little surprising, to say the least! No DSLRs, Nikon or Full Frame camera reached the top 10 in sales. While we hear the most noise about the biggest, newest and most expensive cameras, it’s worth noting that often those are not the most popular in terms of what people actually buy.
Digital camera popularity is on the rise in China with live streaming expected to grow 400% by 2025
An article on the Japanese website Nikkei is claiming that the popularity of digital cameras in China is on the increase. According to the Google-translated version, sales of digital cameras have increased due to a seemingly unlikely suspect. What has historically been the downfall of dedicated cameras, smartphones seem to be the cause. Deficiencies in smartphones that can only be overcome by DSLR and mirrorless cameras have resulted in about a 20% increase in sales over the previous year.
They also say that live streaming is also expected to grow to five times its current size by the year 2025 and that the demand currently far exceeds the supply due to logistics issues as a result of the coronavirus situation, causing prices to remain high.
A sign of things to come? Latest CIPA numbers show camera sales seem to be recovering
Whether or not you’ve been following the camera news sales over the last 18 months or so, it probably comes as not much of a surprise that camera sales have been way down. Sales weren’t looking great even before the planet was hit with a global pandemic which saw production go down around the world as well as demand.
But the latest figures from CIPA show that while we’re not back up to 2019 levels yet, the data so far for 2021 looks like the industry might be starting to make something of a recovery, with sales significantly higher than the same time last year over a four-month period leading up to July.
Second-hand market ditches DSLRs in favor of mirrorless
Well, this is a surprise. It seems that the second-hand market is following suit with new purchases. According to used gear retailer KEH, who reported on their blog, mirrorless sales have overtaken DSLRs in the used market for December 2020. This is the first time that this has happened in the company’s history and they say the trend looks to continue for 2021.
KEH notes that DSLRs has been a huge part of their business and that they ruled their top 10 best selling cameras from 2010 to 2019. In 2020, that changed, when three mirrorless bodies entered that top 10 list with the charge being led by the Sony A6000.
Nikon to temporarily focus on mirrorless cameras after 80% drop in camera sales
2020 has been tough on Nikon. The company faced multiple gear delays, layoffs, and company restructuring. The camera sales suffered as well, creating a colossal 17.1 billion yen loss in the Q1 of 2020. So, Nikon has decided to focus on mirrorless for the time being.
Japan’s top-selling DSLR in 2020 was the Nikon D5600 – Wait, what?
The rankings for 2020 are in from BCN, which collects sales data from across its platforms, and it looks like the most popular DSLR sold in Japan throughout the course of 2020 is the Nikon D5600. Don’t get too happy just yet, though, Nikon fanboys and girls. Canon still managed to grab 7 of the remaining 9 spots in the top 10.
APS-C has helped Fuji perform “significantly better” than market average so they’re sticking with it
Fujifilm’s newly promoted President and Managing Director of Fujifilm in Europe, Toshi Iida, has spoken in an interview with Amateur Photographer. In it, they talk about how Fuji’s dealt with COVID-19 and their “significantly better” performance this year compared with the rest of the industry. They also spoke about the future, including Fuji’s decision to stick with APS-C going forward.
Camera sales plummeted in 2020 – mirrorless overtakes DSLRs in units shipped
The latest CIPA report is out for camera sales up to September 2020 and it’s not looking good at all for cameras this year – any type of cameras. The data shows that there has been a bit of an upsurge in both DSLR and mirrorless sales in the past month or so, but both have taken a huge beating this year.
DSLR sales down 54% from the same January-September period in 2019. And while mirrorless cameras are also down a significant 34% chunk, they are starting to gain some ground when it comes to market share vs DSLRs, overtaking them in overall unit sales.
Olympus dominates Japanese mirrorless market but the EOS R5 tops recent sales
The camera market is an interesting thing, especially when it comes to sales. Depending on how we look at the data, it can show very different results. Two reports confused me at first, with one declaring Olympus as King in the Japanese mirrorless market, holding four of the top ten spots on sales while another says that Canon’s EOS R5 was outselling every other interchangeable lens camera available.
Well, it turns out they’re both right. For the first six months of 2020, one report shows that Olympus holds the Number 1, 2, 6 and 10 spots on mirrorless camera sales collated from Japanese retailers. The other is a little more recent, covering the first two weeks of this month, showing that the EOS R5 has been outselling every other mirrorless camera currently available.
Canon’s latest financial report shows a massive 25% drop in sales
Canon has published the financial results of the first quarter of 2020, and as it was probably expected – they’re not good. The results show that the sales have dropped by 25% in the Q1 of 2020. Of course, there’s an obvious cause of such poor results: the coronavirus.
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