Camera Sales and Market Share

[HDNitehawk]

Film to digital was a paradigm shift. A MILC is not really that different from a DLSR.

I was referring to the MILC sales cannibalizing the DLSR sales when DLSR's are no more. The uptick wouldn't be much but the two lines should combine.

However rethinking this the graph it is troubling in that MILC sales should be rising as DSLR falls. The opposite is true in that the MILC's are falling. Where will the bottom be? Brant's speculation of 5M might be high with this progression.

[neuroanatomist]

I agree it’s a concern for the industry. The mix is also important. 5M bodies where most are full frame with high margins (and probably multiple lens purchases and future upgrades) vs. the recent mix where >85% are APS-C, less expensive and lower margin bodies with probably no lenses beyond the 1-2 in the kit and replacements after failures. Very different.

[Kayaker72]

I saw on CR today that Nikkei had released their 2022 data so I thought I would update these two figures:

So, DSLRs are not dead yet, actually accounting for 31% of sales in 2022. Interesting, at least to me, for mirrorless, 2022 was a rise over 2021, but only the 4th best year behind 2018, 2012, and 2017. While I do expect MILCs to increase their share as DSLRs declined, I am impressed by how flat the MILCs trend line is. Overall, a slight increase in 2021 and 2022. Hopefully 2020 was the bottom of the ILC market.

Then, between the brands:

Most of the conclusions are pretty obvious: Canon has maintained a dominant leading position; and the market share lost by Nikon was mostly picked up by Sony. This reversed itself ever so slightly (less than 1% market share) in 2022 from 2021, we'll see if that becomes a trend.

Fuji has been between 5.1 and 5.9 % and Panasonic has decreased from 4.7 to 4.2% from 2019 to 2022.

[neuroanatomist]

Thanks for the updated graphs!

Despite MILC sales being basically flat in terms of unit sales as you've plotted, it's worth noting that the while the unit value of DSLRs has also remained flat, the unit value for MILCs has trended upward significantly (Y-axis is in units of 1,000 yen).

The rising unit prices have mostly offset the revenues lost to falling unit sales for DSLRs.

[Kayaker72]

Thanks. That is also interesting. You can see the shift to higher end MILCs while the mix of the DSLRs stays consistent. Interesting that the MILC is rising above the DSLR rather than up to that level. It almost has to mean people are buying a different mix of cameras. That people buying mirrorless are buying fewer entry level mirrorless cameras, whereas the mix of DSLR is staying consistent. The second part of that, unless those values are real (adjusted for inflation), DSLRs staying consistent is actually a price decline, granted, that would only explain a rise of 32% (US inflation calculator) and not 3x increase, which is, the more I think about it, shocking. The Canon 5 series has typically been $3300 at entry while the R5 came in at $3,900. An increase, sure, but 3x has to imply where people were buying $1000 DSLRs they are now buying $3,000 DSLRs. I.e. death to the entry level camera.

[Kayaker72]

It looks like ~147 yen per $1USD....so 40,000 yen is $273 and 130,000 yen is $881. The divergence still interests me as it does indicate a change in camera mix, but, amending my previous statement, at those prices, there is room for entry level cameras.

[neuroanatomist]

The APS-C : FF ratio was ~9:1 for many years, but over the past few years it has shifted to ~7:1. That is certainly consistent with a greater fraction of people buying more expensive cameras, but APS-C is still a clear majority and many of those are entry level.

[DavidEccleston]

With the R7 and R8 being nearly the same price, we may see an uptick in full-frame adoption, but with no sign of it in spending trends.

[Kayaker72]

For whatever it is worth, Canon recently announced that they were the #1 Mirrorless Brand in 2023 in the US.

But, CIPA also released their estimates for 2023. Below is based on estimated worldwide production.

This is an estimate of units produced. As you can see, there is an ever so slight increased in total units produced since 2020. Also, Mirrorless is now ~80% of the market. Which, as a statistic sounds impressive, but looking at the numbers, there were still 1.17 million DSLR units produced in 2023. In terms of margins, using Worldwide Shipment data for price, a mirrorless ILC averaged 116K yen (~$776 USD) while DSLRs averaged 48k yen (~$321 USD). Which is pretty similar to Neuro's chart above but does mark a decline in MILCs average price of 127K yen in 2022.

I haven't seen the NIKKEI data splitting out the rankings of the different brands. I think that usually comes out in late March or April.