Canon increased its global market share of still cameras in 2018
By Canon Rumors | July 8, 2019 | Canon Business General
For all the internet hate Canon gets, they continue to do what you’re supposed to do as a company, sell more things than anyone else, and according to the latest numbers, Canon has done just that. In 2018, Canon increased its market share globally by 3.9%.
Now, it’s not all positive, as the digital camera market fell 22% in 2018. Which means Canon has a bigger piece of a smaller pie.
The top 5 camera companies control 85.2% of the global camera market.
Top 5 camera manufacturers by market share globally:
Canon 40.5% (+ 3.9)
Nikon 19.1% (- 2.7)
Sony 17.7% (- 0.7)
Fujifilm: 5.1% (+ 1.3)
Olympus: 2.8% (+ 0.1)
It looks like Sony continues to eat into Nikon’s market share, and I imagine is a second system for a lot of Canon shooters.
Seemingly of more interest to investor's than photographer's.
A sensible buying decision priority should be on the gear that best suits your need's, rather than one that less serve's your need's, simply because a particular company has more sales than another.
Sy Sez wrote:
Seemingly of more interest to investor's than photographer's.
A sensible buying decision priority should be on the gear that best suits your need's, rather than one that less serve's your need's, simply because a particular company has more sales than another.
We should care because:
1) Healthy competition is good for choice - Sony drove innovation with mirrorless. If Nikon fails we will have less choice.
2) As a canon user with 10 x $1000's of dollars in Canon equipment, I would rather Canon have the largest market share which yields the most ancillary flash, remote shutter releases,.... at the lowest costs. But that is my selfish choice.
3) Sony users need Canon to keep Sony from abandoning its mounts and jumping on a whim like they did with their DSRL mounts.
4) Canon users need Sony to cause innovation
5) Nikon needs Sony too - lots because they don't make sensors
6) Economists say - it only takes a small percentage willing to switch to make a big difference in price and innovation. So thank you Sony switchers.
But absent my 10 x $1000's of dollars - meh - Nikon vs Canon.
All said though - we are in the golden age - you can shoot at iso 6400 or (iso800 and push to 6400) like never before. With edge to edge clarity. Now it takes more and more artistic skill and effort (hiking, finding something different) to excel. Glad its my hobby not my job.
Sy Sez wrote:
Seemingly of more interest to investor's than photographer's.
A sensible buying decision priority should be on the gear that best suits your need's, rather than one that less serve's your need's, simply because a particular company has more sales than another.
That's great until you invest a lot of money into an ecosystem that collapses because the vendor couldn't make any money. Sure, buy what works, but don't invest in a sinking ship, either.
Scott Stoness wrote:
We should care because:
1) Healthy competition is good for choice - Sony drove innovation with mirrorless. If Nikon fails we will have less choice.
2) As a canon user with 10 x $1000's of dollars in Canon equipment, I would rather Canon have the largest market share which yields the most ancillary flash, remote shutter releases,.... at the lowest costs. But that is my selfish choice.
3) Sony users need Canon to keep Sony from abandoning its mounts and jumping on a whim like they did with their DSRL mounts.
4) Canon users need Sony to cause innovation
5) Nikon needs Sony too - lots because they don't make sensors
6) Economists say - it only takes a small percentage willing to switch to make a big difference in price and innovation. So thank you Sony switchers.
But absent my 10 x $1000's of dollars - meh - Nikon vs Canon.
All said though - we are in the golden age - you can shoot at iso 6400 or (iso800 and push to 6400) like never before. With edge to edge clarity. Now it takes more and more artistic skill and effort (hiking, finding something different) to excel. Glad its my hobby not my job....Show more →
Nikon designs their own sensors and uses some Sony intellectual property to do so as they use Sony Fabs to build their sensors since fabs require massive capital to maintain on the latest tech. Do not mistake this for Nikon using Sony sensors in their interchangeable lens cameras. There is a reason Nikons sensors still outshine Sony’s in many ways.
EB-1 wrote:
I'm not seeing any cameras that I'd want to buy from any manufacturer in 2019. We'll see if higher grade bodies appear in 2020.
EBH
That's kind of where I'm at now. I have a 5D3 with a bunch of v2 L lenses, but I don't see anything that checks all the boxes. I've also owned Fuji and Panasonic. I'm anxious to see Canon's 5D replacement before doing anything. If it costs way too much or has some critical omission, I'll probably get a used 5D4 and keep waiting for my ideal mirrorless to come along.
Mike_5D wrote:
That's kind of where I'm at now. I have a 5D3 with a bunch of v2 L lenses, but I don't see anything that checks all the boxes. I've also owned Fuji and Panasonic. I'm anxious to see Canon's 5D replacement before doing anything. If it costs way too much or has some critical omission, I'll probably get a used 5D4 and keep waiting for my ideal mirrorless to come along.
7D2 replacement > MILC =
7D2+80D > 90D ... but, how close is the xxD flavor, peppered with xD performance?
As to the numbers (though they don't make my decisions for me) ... I'm surprised by them somewhat. Given the rhetoric we often receive, you'd think Canon would have been -99% and Sony +99%.
The current state of the industry has things in a bit of flux, and my radar is watching Panasonic (not on the top 5) and Nikon .... but standing pat on Canon to see where each of them take their MILC mount direction a bit more.
Would also be interesting to see sales of cameras retailing in excess of $3000 & $2000 dollars. I would suggest a declining market.
Happy with Canon5DIII, 1DIII, 2x Fuji XT2. My next buy may be XT4 if enough improvements to warrant a purchase. I am back at the stage I was 40+ years ago when I bought if I needed to.
Tony B wrote:
Would also be interesting to see sales of cameras retailing in excess of $3000 & $2000 dollars. I would suggest a declining market.
Happy with Canon5DIII, 1DIII, 2x Fuji XT2. My next buy may be XT4 if enough improvements to warrant a purchase. I am back at the stage I was 40+ years ago when I bought if I needed to.
Actually the average sales price for ILC has been on the rise. That is truly the only way this market will survive as the low end bottom cameras are being eaten by phones.
EB-1 wrote:
I'm not seeing any cameras that I'd want to buy from any manufacturer in 2019. We'll see if higher grade bodies appear in 2020.
I have to agree. Right now Sony has the tech but their bodies are terrible for ergos/build. Even Canikon's ML entries are bad.
Holding an EOS R is almost as bad as an A7III or A9. Grips too small and not deep enough, no decent spacing for buttons,
and poor weather resistance. Your hand position is all scrunched up. 1D series are very neutral for hand position and are
comfortable to hold all day.
DSLR's offer a wide choice for size and build of bodies. Still waiting for ML to show that kind of variety as a system. Hopefully
the Olympics will expand the options.
Sy Sez wrote:
Seemingly of more interest to investor's than photographer's.
A sensible buying decision priority should be on the gear that best suits your need's, rather than one that less serve's your need's, simply because a particular company has more sales than another.
I wouldn't think many photographers are buying gear because of market share. Yet, I do find this interesting and glad it was posted.
As a long term indicator, Canon remaining strong strongly suggests Canon will be in camera business a log time and will continue to develop new, and hopefully better, products. "Better" is left to the imagination of the reader.
krementz wrote:
I wouldn't think many photographers are buying gear because of market share. Yet, I do find this interesting and glad it was posted.
As a long term indicator, Canon remaining strong strongly suggests Canon will be in camera business a log time and will continue to develop new, and hopefully better, products. "Better" is left to the imagination of the reader.
Canon make most of their camera income on the lower end of their range.
They have flooded the market and have twice as much market share as anyone else
Until that changes they will continue to release new models with tiny incremental improvements.
It's boring but it works.
TOKYO -- Canon's operating profit is on track to sink 40% this year to slightly over 200 billion yen ($1.85 billion), Nikkei has learned, amid a slowing European economy and slumping chip market.
The Japanese company's profit for the year ending in December is seen falling roughly 60 billion yen short of its downgraded guidance in April. Sales likely will shrink 6% to a figure above 3.7 trillion yen, off about 100 billion yen from April's forecast. The full-year projections are expected to be lowered again when Canon presents first-half earnings next week.
Worsening economic conditions in Europe have caused corporate clients to hold off on investments, softening sales of office equipment and other machinery. The depreciation of the euro against the yen also undercut profitability in exports.
This comes on top of a global market downturn for semiconductors used in data centers and smartphones. Semiconductor manufacturers have withheld capital spending on chipmaking equipment, one of Canon's products, and deliveries have been postponed.
The shrinking camera market continues to hurt Canon. Deliveries of digital cameras worldwide tumbled 24% on the year during the first five months of 2019, according to the Camera & Imaging Products Association, based in Tokyo. Sales of Canon's single-lens reflex camera, a high-margin product, have declined in China and elsewhere.
Canon is expected to report a first-half operating profit of around 80 billion yen, down 50% from a year earlier, with sales slipping 10% to roughly 1.7 trillion yen.
For the second half, the company aims to expand revenue by rolling out new offerings such as additional lenses for the popular mirrorless cameras. Medical devices, security cameras and two other new businesses are performing strongly, and are altogether anticipated to account for more than 25% of sales this year, up from 23% last year.
Canon has begun streamlining efforts, focused on its overseas camera and office equipment operations. These changes will start translating to improved profitability as early as next year. But the restructuring apparently will cost more than the 20 billion yen originally planned.
Canon's woes reflect the difficulties facing Japan's businesses amid the U.S.-China trade war and the slowing global economy. Yaskawa Electric, a maker of industrial robots, last week reported a 70% drop in net profit to 4.7 billion yen for the quarter ended in May.
With a slew of April-June results on the horizon, some observers are bracing for more companies to unexpectedly undershoot expectations.
chez wrote:
Yep...market share using low end little margin cameras can be very misleading.
I doubt Canon will ever shut down its camera business - but if profits continue to decline so steeply, a merger or selloff of the camera business is definitely possible. Same might be true for other brands. Interesting times ahead.
Either innovate and give your users what they want or go out of business. The dedicated camera makers have been behaving like the Titanic heading toward an iceberg. They have decided to keep on the course that leads to a crash instead altering course and avoiding it. IMO, a lot of this attitude is born from arrogance in that they think they know what their user base wants and shouldn't be questioned.
They all should be marrying smartphone tech to dedicated camera tech and offering small, inexpensive cameras that use SIMM cards, the Android OS, computational photography etc. along with the strengths that come from larger sensors and telephoto lenses. Instead we keep getting the same old thing with incremental tweaks while smartphone cameras are advancing at a ferocious pace and gobbling their market from the bottom up. At this pace there won't be much of their user base left in 5-10 years because they will get what they want from a smartphone with no other options available.
