Digital cameras, which almost wiped out film cameras and were then nearly wiped out in turn by the iPhone and other cell phone cameras, are making a surprise comeback.
Led by sophisticated models with interchangeable lenses, unit sales are stabilizing and the value of sales is rising. This is good news for Japanese camera makers, which have more than 90% of the global market.
The reversal of fortunes was highlighted at the CP+ Camera & Photo Imaging Show 2023, which was held at the Pacifico exhibition hall in Yokohama from February 23-26.
Exhibitors included camera makers, lens makers Sigma and Tamron, other imaging companies, university photo clubs and media organizations. The first live event since 2019, it was crowded with camera enthusiasts after three years of virtual exhibitions during the pandemic.
Products that caught people’s attention at the show included:
- The Canon EOS R8, a mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera with a 24.2-megapixel image sensor, high-speed autofocus that can shoot 40 frames per second, 4K video and 4-channel audio.
- The Sony a7R V, a mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera with a 61-megapixel image sensor, subject detection autofocus and 8K video, Cinema Line cameras for video production and content creation cloud services.
- The Fujifilm X-H2S, a mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera with a 26.1-megapixel image sensor, 40 frames-per-second autofocus with a subject detection menu that now includes insects and drones, and up to 240 minutes of continuous 4K video recording.
These cameras can all do things that cell phone cameras cannot.
Mirrorless cameras are smaller and lighter than the single lens reflex (SLR) cameras that preceded them. First introduced to the consumer market by Panasonic in 2008, they send the image to the viewfinder electronically, eliminating the mirror and prism used in SLRs.
In 2022, mirrorless models accounted for 68.7% of interchangeable lens camera unit shipments and 85.8% of shipments by value.
Five companies had 94% of the global camera market in 2021 (the most recent year for which data is available), according to Techno Systems Research, a Japanese market research and consulting firm.
It shows Canon held 45.8%, Sony 27.0%, Nikon 11.3%, Fujifilm 5.9% and Panasonic 4.4%. A few other companies including Olympus, Ricoh, Leica and Hasselblad accounted for the remainder.
In 2019, Nikon had 18.6% of the market versus 45.2% for Canon and 20.2% for Sony. But Nikon was slow to introduce mirrorless cameras and fell behind.
Total shipments of digital cameras declined by 4.2% in 2022 to 8 million units, according to data from CIPA, Japan’s Camera & Imaging Products Association.
But shipments of cameras with interchangeable lenses were up 10.8% to 5.9 million units, lifting the total value of shipments by 39.4% to 681.4 billion yen (US$5 billion at 137 yen to the US dollar) and the average digital camera price by 45.4% to 85,000 yen ($620).
Shipments of digital cameras with built-in lenses (mostly pocket-sized cameras) dropped 30.8% last year to just 2.1 million units. These are the cameras that compete directly with cell phones.
Europe remains the largest market for digital cameras, taking 29.8% of shipments in 2022 according to CIPA. The Americas accounted for 25.7%, China for 15.7%, Japan for 11.6%, other Asian countries for 13.8% and other regions for 3.4%.
But China’s share was only 9.6% in 2019, when CIPA first broke down the figures for Asia, and seems likely to keep rising as the world reopens to tourism. Before the pandemic, Chinese tourists carrying a large, impressive Japanese digital camera were a common sight.
Digital camera market history
The digital still camera was invented by Steven Sasson at Eastman Kodak in 1975. It was the size of a small printer or toaster and weighed 3.6 kilograms. Over the next 20 years, several companies in the US, Europe and Japan improved on the technology, but without much commercial success.
In November 1994, Japanese consumer electronics company Casio introduced the first consumer-use digital camera with a liquid crystal display viewfinder. Kodak, Sony, Canon, Nikon and several other camera makers jumped on the bandwagon and by 2008 sales of film cameras were so low that CIPA stopped reporting the data.
Casio, by the way, withdrew from the digital camera market in 2018. It is now known primarily for its calculators, digital watches and electronic keyboards. Kodak exited in 2012. Samsung entered the market in 1997 but exited by 2017. It now concentrates on image sensors for cell phone cameras, in which it ranks second to Sony.
There has been a lot of market consolidation since 2010, when 11 companies accounted for 93% of the market. In one big deal, Ricoh acquired Pentax in 2011.
From 1995, when CIPA started reporting the data, until 2010, annual shipments of digital cameras rose almost 24 times, from 5.1 million units to 121.5 million units. In 2010, Apple launched the iPhone 4, which had double the resolution of its predecessor. After that, shipments of digital cameras fell almost as fast as they had risen, dropping to 8 million units in 2022.
Most of the decline was in cameras with built-in lenses, shipments of which have dropped by 98.1% since peaking in 2008. Shipments of cameras with interchangeable lenses dropped by 73.7% after peaking in 2012, but hit bottom in 2020 and began to recover in 2021.
The total value of digital camera shipments has dropped by 58.5% since 2010, with the value of built-in lens camera shipments down 95.7% and the value of interchangeable-lens camera shipments down 19.0% from their respective peaks.
However, since 2020, unit shipments of cameras with interchangeable lenses have risen by 11.7%, the value of shipments has risen by 77.5% and the average selling price has risen by 59.0% to 102,957 yen ($752). Sales of lenses have also started to recover after a steep decline.
The average selling price of cameras with built-in lenses has also risen over the past two years by 59.6% to 34,055 yen ($249), as only the best models are of interest to consumers. But unit shipments have dropped 41.7% and the value of shipments has fallen by 7%.
CIPA and the camera makers are cautious in their forecasts for 2023, but the trend toward mirrorless digital cameras with interchangeable lenses, advanced autofocus and video should continue. Millions of people putting photos taken with their cell phone cameras on social media are probably looking for something more.
At least this correspondent is.
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