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Archive 2020 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

Jorgen Udvang
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p.11 #1 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

chez wrote:
Maybe, maybe not...but if it was up to DSLR cameras...the industry would be toast for sure. Here's sales data jan-nov for the last few years.

Year.....DSLR............Mirrorless

2017__329_________205
2018__280_________246
2019__163_________260

DSLR' heading down....Mirrorless still climbing.

The question is how much of the mirrorless climbing is due to heavy marketing. Sony and Fuji are spending lots of money here in Asia to increase their market shares, while DSLR cameras are hardly marketed at all. With that in mind, it's almost surprising that the DSLR fall hasn't been more dramatic. With new cameras like the D780 and the Canon 90D, we are getting closer to a "best of both world" kind of camera, something that only Canon, Nikon and possibly Pentax will be able to offer.

People who want and need system cameras will still buy them, mirrorless or not. Sony and Fuji has now shown what they are able to offer. the question is what happens when the novelty effect fades. I have been shooting mirrorless and DSLR in combination for 10 years. I'm not going to dump DSLR, and I do not think that the D780 and the D6 will be the last DSLR models from Nikon.

Jan 15, 2020 at 09:37 PM

Steve Spencer
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p.11 #2 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

Jorgen Udvang wrote:
The question is how much of the mirrorless climbing is due to heavy marketing. Sony and Fuji are spending lots of money here in Asia to increase their market shares, while DSLR cameras are hardly marketed at all. With that in mind, it's almost surprising that the DSLR fall hasn't been more dramatic. With new cameras like the D780 and the Canon 90D, we are getting closer to a "best of both world" kind of camera, something that only Canon, Nikon and possibly Pentax will be able to offer.

People who want and need system cameras will still buy them,...Show more →

Let's look at the sales in units and let's take it back two more year to 2015 (we don't have Dec for 2019, so like Chez we will just look Jan-Nov so we can use 2019 and compare directly. By the way Dec. is not a particularly high or low selling month from 2015-2018).

2015 (total camera sold Jan-Nov)
DSLR: 9,090,138
Mirrorless: 3,121,061

2016 (total camera sold Jan-Nov)
DSLR: 7,703,154
Mirrorless: 2,813,086

2017 (total camera sold Jan-Nov)
DSLR: 7,045,048
Mirrorless: 3,809,687

2018 (total camera sold Jan-Nov)
DSLR: 6,255,735
Mirrorless: 3,819,575

2019 (total camera sold Jan-Nov)
DSLR: 4,202,538
Mirrorless: 3,618,238

The first thing to notice in this data is that when we are talking about a climb in mirrorless it isn't much of a climb. We are seeing a moderate growth of about 14% over five year or a little less than 3% a year. Could this be due to marketing? Yeah that is a bout the size of growth that marketing could produce, but the key thing is that the growth is not huge in the number of mirrorless camera sold at all (by the way there is much bigger growth in revenue produced by these cameras so as the growth in the number of cameras has increase the mirrorless cameras being purchased are also more expensive as well.)

What about the decrease in DSLR sales? It is massive with a 116% decline in sales over the five year period or about a 23% decline a year. If we calculated that year over year it would look even worse. There is simply no way to attribute the decline in DSLR sales to increased marketing for mirrorless cameras. The decline is too big and has lasted too long for that to be the cause.

Note, however, that even for 2019 there will still be more DSLRs sold than mirrorless cameras sold (expect that to reverse, however for 2020 as Sept, Oct, & Nov of 2019 all saw more sales of mirrorless cameras than DSLRs). So, DSLRs aren't dead any more than mirrorless cameras are dead. They are still selling at similar levels, but sales of DSLRs have dropped very substantially. Still over the last five years (and almost all those cameras will still be in operation) there are a lot more DSLRs out there than mirrorless cameras. If you are Nikon this means that you still have a nice five year window or so to sell a lot of F mount lenses. Beyond that it looks like F mount lenses might slow substantially in sales.

Will mirrorless fill the gap? The answer is that it does not looks like it, but it does look like mirrorless will become dominant over the next three years. Modeling these number out those three years it looks like we can expect the overall sales of ILCs to drop from the about 8.5 million sold in 2019 to somewhere between 7 and 8 million in 2022. Of those 7 to 8 million it looks like 1.5 to 2 million will be DSLRs and 5 to 6 million will be mirrorless. In addition as mirrorless now on average sell for more per camera we can expect camera revenues to show less decline than camera units sold. Together this means, I would argue, that we have seen almost all of the market contraction and the market will be more stable going forward from that point.

If that reasoning is correct, then as Nikon user I think we can expect the following. 1) Nikon will be a smaller company but there isn't really much danger to them failing if they can adapt to the size of the market as it is today. 2) Nikon will likely for at least another five years have both DSLRs and mirrorless cameras and that even though DSLRs will only make up a quarter to a third of the market in three years or so that will still be an important part of Nikon's business. 3) Nikon's long term success as a company depends on diversifying and making a competitive set of mirrorless cameras. I think that will be their primary focus even though DSLRs will be an important part of their business for the medium term.

Jan 16, 2020 at 11:32 AM

Jorgen Udvang
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p.11 #3 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

There's another side to this also:
While the DSLR market is basically divided between two players, Canon and Nikon, the mirrorless market is divided between Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Panasonic, Fuji, Leica... did I forget any? That's seven manufacturers with an assortment of lens mounts and formats.

Each of the mirrorless brands is left with a very small share of the mirrorless market, which must have implications for their profitability. Many of those corporations have very strong legs, and can probably afford to lose a bit of money while waiting for the market to develop. However, large corporations are also well known for cutting off dead meat if there is little chance of improvement.

In addition to being able to share the DSLR market between them, Canon and Nikon has a large potential for selling lenses, batteries, spare parts etc. to all the millions of users who have bought their products in the past. And they do.

Jan 16, 2020 at 12:10 PM

1bwana1
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p.11 #4 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

Think about the fact that 100% of the decline in the market has been absorbed by DSLRs, while mirrorless has seen small gains. This is as significant as a huge growth in mirrorless would have been.

Yes, there is still a good deal of money to be milked from the DSLR segment of the industry. As Steve said, the turn to majority mirrorless is likely to take place in the next year. The residual DSLR market must be harvested by a company such as Nikon that has a huge user base. More important because Nikon is arguably behind in mirrorless market penetration. But we should make no mistake, the future is mirrorless, and Nikon must figure out a way to be successful in that market.

Nikon will become a diversified business with industrial optical products being the main focus. Nikon will end up having a much smaller camera business unit. Nikon's R&D budget changes indicate this, and current Nikon leadership has explicitly said this.

Jan 16, 2020 at 12:30 PM

RobCD
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p.11 #5 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

Jorgen Udvang wrote:
Pointing out that Nikon mirrorless, including the weight of one or more lenses, is in many cases as heavy as Nikon DSLR is not trivialising. The introduction of mirrorless didn't nullify physical realities. The weight advantage goes both ways and are mostly small. A few extra batteries easilly tips it in the other direction, and for people with large hands, the D850 will often feel lighter than a Z7.

There is no universal answer to this, and again, I shoot both and will probably continue to do so. What I do not like is the never-ending chant "DSLR is dead,...Show more →

No it doesn't go both ways. I don't see it as a challenge to make a Nikon Z body exactly the same as the D850 if the market really wanted it but I'd like to see Nikon make a new version of the D850 the size and weight of the Z7.

You're right that mirrorless doesn't nullify physical realities but what gets missed is the reality that camera manufacturers are going to emphasize size and weight more for mirrorless. You can argue that Nikon can make a 14-30 f4 or 24-70 f4 F mount lens close to the same size and weight as the Nikon Z version but the real world answer is that they won't. So it isn't just about physical realities it's also about design decisions to prioritize size and weight and that isn't going to happen for Nikon F mount like it will for Nikon Z. On the other hand it's very realistic for Nikon to make larger Z bodies to satisfy those that want them.

Finally, this idea that most Nikon Z users would need "a few extra batteries" is misguided in my opinion. I carried one spare when I used Nikon DSLRs and I carry one spare today. My guess is that most Nikon Z users are similar or worst case carry one additional battery.

Jan 16, 2020 at 12:38 PM

zhangyue
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p.11 #6 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

Well said.

One thing is clear that one(SLR) is reaching plateau, one(MILC) is booming. So I don�t know if these data can only be interpolate as MILC is sole future or will dominate industry. I will wait for both canon and Nikon SLR selling number after D780, 880 and 5D5 6D3 to see what happen next.

Soon, the other(MILC) will also reach plateau, it will be difficult to generate growth in that condition. As you indicated: over past 5 years, with such fast pace development of MILC, it only generate 3% year to year growth.

What if both stabilize to certain percentage and at the same time both shrinking to a much smaller market.

I don�t have an opinion but pubic view may not always be the reality.

Steve Spencer wrote:
Let's look at the sales in units and let's take it back two more year to 2015 (we don't have Dec for 2019, so like Chez we will just look Jan-Nov so we can use 2019 and compare directly. By the way Dec. is not a particularly high or low selling month from 2015-2018).

2015 (total camera sold Jan-Nov)
DSLR: 9,090,138
Mirrorless: 3,121,061

2016 (total camera sold Jan-Nov)
DSLR: 7,703,154
Mirrorless: 2,813,086

2017 (total camera sold Jan-Nov)
DSLR: 7,045,048
Mirrorless: 3,809,687

2018 (total camera sold Jan-Nov)
DSLR: 6,255,735
Mirrorless: 3,819,575

2019 (total camera sold Jan-Nov)
DSLR: 4,202,538
Mirrorless: 3,618,238

The first thing to notice in this data is that when we are talking about a climb in mirrorless it isn't much of a climb. We are seeing a moderate growth of about 14% over five year or a little less than 3% a year. Could this be due to marketing? Yeah that is a bout the size of growth that marketing could produce, but the key thing is that the growth is not huge in the number of mirrorless camera sold at all (by the way there is much bigger growth in revenue produced by these cameras so as the growth in the number of cameras has increase the mirrorless cameras being purchased are also more expensive as well.)

What about the decrease in DSLR sales? It is massive with a 116% decline in sales over the five year period or about a 23% decline a year. If we calculated that year over year it would look even worse. There is simply no way to attribute the decline in DSLR sales to increased marketing for mirrorless cameras. The decline is too big and has lasted too long for that to be the cause.

Note, however, that even for 2019 there will still be more DSLRs sold than mirrorless cameras sold (expect that to reverse, however for 2020 as Sept, Oct, & Nov of 2019 all saw more sales of mirrorless cameras than DSLRs). So, DSLRs aren't dead any more than mirrorless cameras are dead. They are still selling at similar levels, but sales of DSLRs have dropped very substantially. Still over the last five years (and almost all those cameras will still be in operation) there are a lot more DSLRs out there than mirrorless cameras. If you are Nikon this means that you still have a nice five year window or so to sell a lot of F mount lenses. Beyond that it looks like F mount lenses might slow substantially in sales.

Will mirrorless fill the gap? The answer is that it does not looks like it, but it does look like mirrorless will become dominant over the next three years. Modeling these number out those three years it looks like we can expect the overall sales of ILCs to drop from the about 8.5 million sold in 2019 to somewhere between 7 and 8 million in 2022. Of those 7 to 8 million it looks like 1.5 to 2 million will be DSLRs and 5 to 6 million will be mirrorless. In addition as mirrorless now on average sell for more per camera we can expect camera revenues to show less decline than camera units sold. Together this means, I would argue, that we have seen almost all of the market contraction and the market will be more stable going forward from that point.

If that reasoning is correct, then as Nikon user I think we can expect the following. 1) Nikon will be a smaller company but there isn't really much danger to them failing if they can adapt to the size of the market as it is today. 2) Nikon will likely for at least another five years have both DSLRs and mirrorless cameras and that even though DSLRs will only make up a quarter to a third of the market in three years or so that will still be an important part of Nikon's business. 3) Nikon's long term success as a company depends on diversifying and making a competitive set of mirrorless cameras. I think that will be their primary focus even though DSLRs will be an important part of their business for the medium term....Show more →

Jan 16, 2020 at 01:50 PM

Steve Spencer
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p.11 #7 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

zhangyue wrote:
Well said.

One thing is clear that one(SLR) is reaching plateau, one(MILC) is booming. So I don�t know if these data can only be interpolate as MILC is sole future or will dominate industry. I will wait for both canon and Nikon SLR selling number after D780, 880 and 5D5 6D3 to see what happen next.

Soon, the other(MILC) will also reach plateau, it will be difficult to generate growth in that condition. As you indicated: over past 5 years, with such fast pace development of MILC, it only generate 3% year to year growth.

What if both stabilize to...Show more →

I don't think we can say that DSLRs are plateauing. Let's look at number of cameras sold, price per camera, and total revenue for DSLRs and mirrorless over the last five years (from Jan-Nov, so we can compare to 2019 for which we do not have Dec data yet):

2015:
DSLR: cameras sold - 9,090,138; average price per camera - $402; total revenue - 3.654 billion dollars
Mirrorless: cameras sold - 3,121,061; average price per camera - $404; total revenue - 1.260 billion dollars

2016:
DSLR: cameras sold - 7,730,154; average price per camera - $395; total revenue - 3.053 billion dollars
Mirrorless: cameras sold - 2,813,086; average price per camera - $422; total revenue - 1.187 billion dollars

2017:
DSLR: cameras sold - 7,045,048; average price per camera - $424; total revenue - 2.987 billion dollars
Mirrorless: cameras sold - 3,809,687; average price per camera - $490; total revenue - 1.867 billion dollars

2018:
DSLR: cameras sold - 6,255,735; average price per camera - $406; total revenue - 2.540 billion dollars
Mirrorless: cameras sold - 3,819,575; average price per camera - $583; total revenue - 2.229 billion dollars

2019:
DSLR: cameras sold - 4,202,538; average price per camera - $351; total revenue - 1.475 billion dollars
Mirrorless: cameras sold - 3,618,238; average price per camera - $652; total revenue - 2.359 billion dollars

Change over the five years:
DSLR: cameras sold - a decrease of 4,887,600 cameras sold in 2019 vs. 2015; a drop in average price per camera of $52 from 2015 to 2019; a drop in total revenue of 2.179 billion dollars from 2015 to 2019

Mirrorless: cameras sold - an increase of 497,177 cameras sold in 2019 vs. 2015; an increase in average price per camera of $248 from 2015 to 2019; and an increase in total revenue of 1.098 billion dollars from 2015 to 2019.

So, what can we say about these numbers? Well DSLRs have clearly dropped sharply in the number of cameras sold especially over the last year but consistently over the last five years. The number of mirrorless cameras have slowly increased in sales, but have sharply increased in price per camera sold so that total revenues have increased substantially over the last five years (they have almost doubled). In contrast total revenues from DSLRs have shrunk pretty dramatically such that over 2 Billion dollars less of revenue came in for DSLRs this year compared to just five years ago. The increase in revenue from mirrorless aren't making up this gap in revenues, but mirrorless revenue is making up about half the gap.

From this we can see that the market in terms of cameras sold had decreased sharply, but the market in terms of money being spent on cameras isn't suffering nearly so badly. People who have bought mirrorless have been willing to spend more in buying the cameras, so it looks like these people are probably pretty serious on average about photography so may be less likely to leave the market. In contrast, when we look at the DSLR market it seems like a lot of people are leaving the market. We have known for sometime that a lot of DSLR buyers bought low level cameras with the kit lens and never bought anything else. I think there are fewer and fewer people doing that which explains the huge drop in the number of DSLR cameras sold. I don't think that drop is over, however, because the price per camera sold is not going up. It seems there are still a fair number of people buying quite inexpensive DSLRs and I still expect more of these people to opt out of the market. So, I don't think DSLR sales have plateaued. I expect them to drop further. When we see the price per camera start increasing then, I think we can expect sales of DSLRs to have stabilized. Where that will be is ultimately a guess, but I have a hard time imagining it is less than 2 million sales a year or 1.5 at the lowest. Maybe I am wrong, however, in either direction.

I think we can also rule out a totally collapsed market. There is still an awful lot of money being spent on camera gear. In addition to these camera sales, there is almost as much money being spent on lens sales that have been relatively stable at between 3 and 4 billion each year over the last 5 years. So, in my view there is still plenty of money being spent on camera gear for a healthy camera market and what we are losing primarily is those who were buying into the market at the very entry level and never intended to buy more gear. Those lost sales will hurt, but I think the industry can still thrive.

Jan 16, 2020 at 07:18 PM

rattymouse
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p.11 #8 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

Jan 16, 2020 at 08:12 PM

zhangyue
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p.11 #9 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

Steve Spencer wrote:
I don't think we can say that DSLRs are plateauing. Let's look at number of cameras sold, price per camera, and total revenue for DSLRs and mirrorless over the last five years (from Jan-Nov, so we can compare to 2019 for which we do not have Dec data yet):

2015:
DSLR: cameras sold - 9,090,138; average price per camera - $402; total revenue - 3.654 billion dollars
Mirrorless: cameras sold - 3,121,061; average price per camera - $404; total revenue - 1.260 billion dollars

2016:
DSLR: cameras sold - 7,730,154; average price per camera - $395; total revenue - 3.053 billion dollars
Mirrorless: cameras sold - 2,813,086; average price per camera - $422; total revenue - 1.187 billion dollars

2017:
DSLR: cameras sold - 7,045,048; average price per camera - $424; total revenue - 2.987 billion dollars
Mirrorless: cameras sold - 3,809,687; average price per camera - $490; total revenue - 1.867 billion dollars

2018:
DSLR: cameras sold - 6,255,735; average price per camera - $406; total revenue - 2.540 billion dollars
Mirrorless: cameras sold - 3,819,575; average price per camera - $583; total revenue - 2.229 billion dollars

2019:
DSLR: cameras sold - 4,202,538; average price per camera - $351; total revenue - 1.475 billion dollars
Mirrorless: cameras sold - 3,618,238; average price per camera - $652; total revenue - 2.359 billion dollars

Change over the five years:
DSLR: cameras sold - a decrease of 4,887,600 cameras sold in 2019 vs. 2015; a drop in average price per camera of $52 from 2015 to 2019; a drop in total revenue of 2.179 billion dollars from 2015 to 2019

Mirrorless: cameras sold - an increase of 497,177 cameras sold in 2019 vs. 2015; an increase in average price per camera of $248 from 2015 to 2019; and an increase in total revenue of 1.098 billion dollars from 2015 to 2019.

So, what can we say about these numbers? Well DSLRs have clearly dropped sharply in the number of cameras sold especially over the last year but consistently over the last five years. The number of mirrorless cameras have slowly increased in sales, but have sharply increased in price per camera sold so that total revenues have increased substantially over the last five years (they have almost doubled). In contrast total revenues from DSLRs have shrunk pretty dramatically such that over 2 Billion dollars less of revenue came in for DSLRs this year compared to just five years ago. The increase in revenue from mirrorless aren't making up this gap in revenues, but mirrorless revenue is making up about half the gap.

From this we can see that the market in terms of cameras sold had decreased sharply, but the market in terms of money being spent on cameras isn't suffering nearly so badly. People who have bought mirrorless have been willing to spend more in buying the cameras, so it looks like these people are probably pretty serious on average about photography so may be less likely to leave the market. In contrast, when we look at the DSLR market it seems like a lot of people are leaving the market. We have known for sometime that a lot of DSLR buyers bought low level cameras with the kit lens and never bought anything else. I think there are fewer and fewer people doing that which explains the huge drop in the number of DSLR cameras sold. I don't think that drop is over, however, because the price per camera sold is not going up. It seems there are still a fair number of people buying quite inexpensive DSLRs and I still expect more of these people to opt out of the market. So, I don't think DSLR sales have plateaued. I expect them to drop further. When we see the price per camera start increasing then, I think we can expect sales of DSLRs to have stabilized. Where that will be is ultimately a guess, but I have a hard time imagining it is less than 2 million sales a year or 1.5 at the lowest. Maybe I am wrong, however, in either direction.

I think we can also rule out a totally collapsed market. There is still an awful lot of money being spent on camera gear. In addition to these camera sales, there is almost as much money being spent on lens sales that have been relatively stable at between 3 and 4 billion each year over the last 5 years. So, in my view there is still plenty of money being spent on camera gear for a healthy camera market and what we are losing primarily is those who were buying into the market at the very entry level and never intended to buy more gear. Those lost sales will hurt, but I think the industry can still thrive....Show more →

Very clearly layout of response. It is as always informative.

I think I wasn't clear about Plateau which was really a technology plateau. People don;t see upgrade incentive for their SLR. However, we can't say the same with MILC. Tons of lenses and body were introduced.

(From D3000 to D3500, F90 to D7500, low to mid end cameras, Nikon didn't really put much efforts I have to say. Maybe they really deserve to be in such a situation there. )

There might still be more traditional SLR customers will drift to MILC in trend. However, Is it possible that there will be a certain point both party reach some sort of balance? One reason is obviously Canon and Nikon feel a lot more pressure now that they have to work hard to make their SLR body more attractive. Having both SLR and MILC under same house seem a nice trend and good selling point. On the other hand, MILC is also approach a tech plateau that people feel less incentive to upgrade.

Just some thoughts.

Jan 16, 2020 at 08:20 PM

Jorgen Udvang
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p.11 #10 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

There's another factor that would be interesting to look into:
How do these figures compare with SLR sales figures before digital? System camera sales got a huge boost when most photographers started going from film to digital, and since the technological development the first ten years was very fast, many upgraded to newer models very often. I owned 5 SLR bodies during 30 years of film photography. I won't say how many digital cameras I've bought the last 15 years. The number is embarrassing.

The sales 20-30 years back, with the addition of emerging markets particularly in Asia, would probably represent a more "normal" situation if the physical quality of the cameras remains the same. I suspect that this is what we are sinking back to.

I'm also quite sure that when the market stabilises, there will be a stable balance between SLR and mirrorless, with mirrorless sales being higher. The notion that DSLR cameras will disappear makes no sense. After ten years with mirrorless, many photographers, myself included, still prefer SLR cameras, and I say that after having owned and used extensively around 10 mirrorless cameras. The situation is similar to that of digital watches that were "taking over" the watch market a few decades ago. They didn't. Nowadays, apart from some specialist watches, digital watches are the 50 cent plastic items you find in Kinder Eggs etc. (No, you don't, but that's more or less the value of them). There's no digital Rolex.

I suspect that for everyday use, smart watches will go the same way. I saw a small group of middle aged ladies the other day, gathering around the smart watch of one of them, trying to figure out what the message on the display meant. Being over 60, even the screen on my rather large mobile phone is too small sometimes.

Electronic, digital technology only makes sense if it represents an improvement over current products. Digital watches didn't. Mirrorless cameras do in some cases, but not all. Would I cover the windows of my house with large LCD screens showing what is going on outside? Of course I wouldn't, not even if the LCD screens were cheaper than glass. The same goes for my cameras unless I need something that is smaller than a DSLR. Then I use m4/3.

Jan 16, 2020 at 08:23 PM

Steve Spencer
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p.11 #11 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

Jorgen Udvang wrote:
There's another factor that would be interesting to look into:
How do these figures compare with SLR sales figures before digital? System camera sales got a huge boost when most photographers started going from film to digital, and since the technological development the first ten years was very fast, many upgraded to newer models very often. I owned 5 SLR bodies during 30 years of film photography. I won't say how many digital cameras I've bought the last 15 years. The number is embarrassing.

The sales 20-30 years back, with the addition of emerging markets particularly in Asia, would probably...Show more →

This source:

https://photographylife.com/news/a-few-thoughts-about-the-camera-market

suggests that from about 1980 to 2000 about 5 to 7 million SLR cameras a year were soldfor that 20 year period. Once December is adding in there should be about 8.5 million ILCs sold for 2019 with revenues of about 7.5 billion including lenses, so I think we are getting close to a market pretty similar to the pre digital era. I think we may see some more loss of sales from DSLRs and a bit more sales of mirrorless cameras especially if Canon and Nikon make a few more mirrorless cameras (both seem likely to make a higher end camera than they currently have and Nikon might also make a lower level cheaper FF camera), and as those two companies fill out their mirrorless line of lenses, but overall I expect both sales figures and revenues to level off. So, I will stick with my prediction of 5 to 6 million mirrorless cameras and 1.5 to 2.0 million DSLRs a year as the new steady state that is likely to evolve. I could add to that prediction revenues of about 6 to 7 billion for the market including lenses. If those predictions are accurate we are getting close to the bottom of the market.

Jan 17, 2020 at 12:26 AM

technic
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p.11 #12 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

Steve Spencer wrote:
So, what can we say about these numbers? Well DSLRs have clearly dropped sharply in the number of cameras sold especially over the last year but consistently over the last five years. The number of mirrorless cameras have slowly increased in sales, but have sharply increased in price per camera sold so that total revenues have increased substantially over the last five years (they have almost doubled). In contrast total revenues from DSLRs have shrunk pretty dramatically such that over 2 Billion dollars less of revenue came in for DSLRs this year compared to just five years ago. The increase in revenue from mirrorless aren't making up this gap in revenues, but mirrorless revenue is making up about half the gap.

From this we can see that the market in terms of cameras sold had decreased sharply, but the market in terms of money being spent on cameras isn't suffering nearly so badly. People who have bought mirrorless have been willing to spend more in buying the cameras, so it looks like these people are probably pretty serious on average about photography so may be less likely to leave the market. In contrast, when we look at the DSLR market it seems like a lot of people are leaving the market. We have known for sometime that a lot of DSLR buyers bought low level cameras with the kit lens and never bought anything else. I think there are fewer and fewer people doing that which explains the huge drop in the number of DSLR cameras sold. I don't think that drop is over, however, because the price per camera sold is not going up. It seems there are still a fair number of people buying quite inexpensive DSLRs and I still expect more of these people to opt out of the market. So, I don't think DSLR sales have plateaued. I expect them to drop further. When we see the price per camera start increasing then, I think we can expect sales of DSLRs to have stabilized. Where that will be is ultimately a guess, but I have a hard time imagining it is less than 2 million sales a year or 1.5 at the lowest. Maybe I am wrong, however, in either direction.

I think we can also rule out a totally collapsed market. There is still an awful lot of money being spent on camera gear. In addition to these camera sales, there is almost as much money being spent on lens sales that have been relatively stable at between 3 and 4 billion each year over the last 5 years. So, in my view there is still plenty of money being spent on camera gear for a healthy camera market and what we are losing primarily is those who were buying into the market at the very entry level and never intended to buy more gear. Those lost sales will hurt, but I think the industry can still thrive....Show more →

Interesting numbers and it's telling that average DSLR price is down in 2019, but that isn't the whole story. Maybe the midrange DSLR is disappearing (moving to mirrorless?) while low end DSLRs are still selling because they are cheap and have relatively good margins (I'm pretty sure about that). If the number of people buying low end is going down a lot and the number of high end sales were stable, we should see a significantly increasing average price. We don't know how high end DSLRs are doing but the lower average for 2019 suggests that sales numbers are down more than for low end DSLR, percentage wise. For ML cameras there (also) is a continous blowout of low end models at very low prices that distorts the average, although my impression is that this is a lot less than a few years ago.
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Jorgen Udvang wrote:
There's another factor that would be interesting to look into:
How do these figures compare with SLR sales figures before digital? System camera sales got a huge boost when most photographers started going from film to digital, and since the technological development the first ten years was very fast, many upgraded to newer models very often. I owned 5 SLR bodies during 30 years of film photography. I won't say how many digital cameras I've bought the last 15 years. The number is embarrassing.

I owned just 2 SLR bodies during my years of (non-professional) film photography, one Practica LTL3 that was worn out within a year and an Olympus OM2 that kept working until I sold it after more than 25 years of use. I owned over 50 digital cameras in the last 25 years - but most of these were for work use (evaluation, experimenting, special projects) and only 5 for private use (or maybe 10, if I include my cameras for infrared photography).

My private spending on photography on a yearly basis is probably similar to the film era: we now spend money on updating camera gear (plus gear for PP, storage etc.) instead of spending loads of money on films, developing, printing or darkroom equipment etc.

Jan 17, 2020 at 05:35 AM

charles.K
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p.11 #13 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

zhangyue wrote:
Very clearly layout of response. It is as always informative.

I think I wasn't clear about Plateau which was really a technology plateau. People don;t see upgrade incentive for their SLR. However, we can't say the same with MILC. Tons of lenses and body were introduced.

(From D3000 to D3500, F90 to D7500, low to mid end cameras, Nikon didn't really put much efforts I have to say. Maybe they really deserve to be in such a situation there. )

There might still be more traditional SLR customers will drift to MILC in trend. However, Is it possible that there will...Show more →

I agree. Growing up in a film SLR time, every family with kids had to have a SLR to capture their special moments. This is now replaced with smart phones. I do remember very clearly there was about 15 years where there was a technology plateau and no one replaced their oldish SLR as they still captured images until the demise of Kodak and the film industry. There were then many years where people did not take photographs until digital era caught up. I was in the same boat as I lost interest with film.

We on these forums are a special group that are very demanding but we represent a small section of the market. Camera manufacturers must have a difficult time predicting models. Sure they may come up with a superb new model at a price level where no one feels the need to upgrade. This is now very similar to what has happened with the A7rIV. Superb camera but do you really need the uber high MP's. Sure if you need but do not. Best part is it reduces the pricing of the A7rIII

The most important aspect not often mentioned is having excellent video functionality. This is a must and a growing market. Many of those who purchase MLC now use them for videos and this market is growing.

Jan 17, 2020 at 05:40 AM

Steve Spencer
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p.11 #14 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

charles.K wrote:
I agree. Growing up in a film SLR time, every family with kids had to have a SLR to capture their special moments. This is now replaced with smart phones. I do remember very clearly there was about 15 years where there was a technology plateau and no one replaced their oldish SLR as they still captured images until the demise of Kodak and the film industry. There were then many years where people did not take photographs until digital era caught up. I was in the same boat as I lost interest with film.

We on these forums are a...Show more →

What I find interesting, if that Photography Life piece that I posted the link to is correct, is that despite the technology plateau and some people loosing interest in photography there was still steady sales of between 5 and 7 million SLRs every year in that era (1980 to 2000). Also worldwide 35mm SLR film cameras were never the big sellers, it was fixed lens cameras some with 35mm but a lot with smaller film formats like 110 that were the big sellers. While SLRs sold 5 to 7 million a year, total camera sales were over 40 million a year. The big sellers were always the cameras much cheaper than an SLRs and it is these, IMO, that are the sales that are totally replaced with phone sales.

Jan 17, 2020 at 09:56 AM

mawz
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p.11 #15 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

The reality is that simple growth in the population should see the ILC market today at 7+ million steady-state.

However I suspect there really was more reason to iterate in the film SLR market during that period than today's DSLR's deliver. The reality is that the generational performance increase in film SLR's stayed pretty significant, while we are seeing both faster iteration on many products (the D750's very long be DSLR standards refresh would have been typical for a film SLR at the same product point) and less significant changes per refresh.

The reality is that an 8 year old DSLR today has much less of a tech and performance deficit today than an 8 year old SLR did in 2000, or 1990 for that matter. Have things gotten better? yes, but it's most been going from good to great, rather than from limited and problematic to good enough (as a lot of film SLR tech went.

Looking at the serious amateur/basic pro bodies (D850 equivalents)

2000 had good AF and multiple points, VR, 5fps, 10 segment matrix metering, etc. Basically modern cameras without digital and with a LOT less AF points, but the tech we know today was basically there.

1992 had single cross-point AF, no stabilization and AF-I super-telephotos had just been introduced, matrix metering was 5 segment and spot metering was now an option.

1986 had no AF, centre-weighted metering with no spot option, and we'd not too long before finally got 1/4000 shutter and 1/250 sync.

1978 had TTL-OTF flash metering, 1/1000 shutter as typical with a single body with 1/2000 and pro bodies topped out at 1/60th sync but consumer bodies had just got 1/125 and motor drives were common across the line and easily mounted.

1970 had metering and motor drives as complicated options and cold shoes with sync cables for flash, but at least your flash ran off a wet cell.

1962 was when TTL composing was a newish thing and metering was Sunny 16 or an external meter which might be clip-on, flash used bulbs you had to replace.

There's far less difference between today's cameras and a D800 or D600 than between any of those 8 year gaps back in the film days.

A lot of this is just collision with the consumer electronics industry, where a 1 year product lifetime is average.

Jan 17, 2020 at 10:32 AM

ilkka_nissila
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p.11 #16 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

I don't really agree; the D800 produced maybe 30% shots in focus at wide apertures on average whereas D5 is maybe 90% on average. There is an enormous difference in the off-center focusing capabilities between 2012 (Advanced Multi-CAM 3500) and 2016 (Multi-CAM 20k). And for LV focusing, I think we will see there is a huge difference between the D800 and D780 if the subject is moving. On the D800, I was happy with ISO 1000; at 6400 the images shot in artificial light were usually unusable in because of banding and patterns in the shadows. I don't have a second thought about using ISO 20000 today with the D850 or D5 and have once delivered a customer images shot at ISO 104200. Also, the optical viewfinder in the D850 and D5 is really clear and crisp compared to slightly fuzzy, vignetting and a bit annoying in the D800. The technology improvement has been really fast.

Jan 17, 2020 at 10:59 AM

mawz
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p.11 #17 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

ilkka_nissila wrote:
I don't really agree; the D800 produced maybe 30% shots in focus at wide apertures on average whereas D5 is maybe 90% on average. There is an enormous difference in the off-center focusing capabilities between 2012 (Advanced Multi-CAM 3500) and 2016 (Multi-CAM 20k). And for LV focusing, I think we will see there is a huge difference between the D800 and D780 if the subject is moving. On the D800, I was happy with ISO 1000; at 6400 the images shot in artificial light were usually unusable in because of banding and patterns in the shadows. I don't have a...Show more →

On focusing, I'd have to disagree, because 2007's D3 had a hit rate not that far behind the D5 for wide aperture focusing, you simply cannot compare a low-MP body and a high-MP body for focus performance directly, as the same AF unit will always do better on low MP, but if you compare the D4 to the D5, most of the difference you note goes away.

And the D800 certainly isn't as bad as you make out if properly adjusted (which admittedly many of the original D800's weren't from the factory). Yeah, the D810 and D850 improved things noticeably, but not anywhere near the difference that the F90 to F100 jump did.

For far off-center focusing, I'll agree, Multi-CAM 20K is a big improvement, but it's just in expanding the coverage area, not really a lot of tech, and remember Nikon's latest body is using...Multi-CAM 3500. But again, a fraction of the difference that the F90 to F100 jump did (before the F5, off-center AF didn't even exist)

LV focusing I'll agree with, but only in the case of the D780, everything else is not a big difference.

I disagree pretty strongly on the ISO limits for the D800, but I shoot outdoors and the D800 is just fine out to ISO 6400 when not dealing with fluorescent. The D850's dual-gain design is decidedly better at the edges of the ISO Limit. Again, compare to the D4 as well, that's just not that different in terms of max ISO from a D5.

The finder definitely got better with the D5/D850, no doubt about that. But again, not really huge gains from the F5/F100 there, just a slow back & forth as Nikon's messed with their LCD overlay implementation (the D800 was a low point in that) and tweaked coatings. None of these finders are as nice as 1972's F2.

Jan 17, 2020 at 12:10 PM

zhangyue
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p.11 #18 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

It would be really interesting to see the break down number of D750, D810, D850 and 5D3, 5D4, 6D2 selling number to the A7x selling number to really understand the mid to high end situation.

SLR which accused here are really too broad at this stage and we all know D3xxx, rebel market were disappeared.

If number match, closely match or even exceed MILC at equivalent level, then that means for most forum visitors who are advanced users, SLR long term stability is secured.

Again, I really don�t know the answer and I think next 3 years will be very interesting to monitor as this is really a transition age for everybody.

If you look A92 to A9, A7r4 to A7r3, I think that is also a sign of tech plateau. 16 bit global shutter hasn�t shown up as planned.

No question There is a lot incentive for Canon and Nikon develop MILC body and lenses as that is the market to grab and new sell come from, however I do think they need play a fine balance to stabilize SLR users. A body like D780 helps and One or two new key glasses such as 35/50/85f1.4, would be sufficient. The lens design tech seems improved as much if not more than body. They should feel the pressure to up their game of SLR glasses.

Steve Spencer wrote:
What I find interesting, if that Photography Life piece that I posted the link to is correct, is that despite the technology plateau and some people loosing interest in photography there was still steady sales of between 5 and 7 million SLRs every year in that era (1980 to 2000). Also worldwide 35mm SLR film cameras were never the big sellers, it was fixed lens cameras some with 35mm but a lot with smaller film formats like 110 that were the big sellers. While SLRs sold 5 to 7 million a year, total camera sales were over 40 million...Show more →

Jan 17, 2020 at 12:12 PM

mawz
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p.11 #19 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

I agree I think Sony's largely hit a tech plateau with the mkIV platform, barring them finally getting a workable and economic global shutter sensor.

I don't think the other players are there yet, but it looks like we'll see rapid iteration there. Frankly Nikon's hardware is probably up to the task while it's the software implementation that lags (since it's comparable hardware to the A7III which is pretty much there already), while Canon seems to have the software nailed, but is held back by the fact that their current FF Mirrorless are recycling old DSLR sensors which cannot keep up with the readout needed for fast tracking AF. I suspect that the EOS RII will be a BIG jump there as it will likely get a new sensor optimized for DPAF AF performance in AI Servo and Video while I think that Nikon should be able to improve the Z6/Z7 performance more unless there's a hardware bottleneck in terms of the EXPEED6 processor or its interconnects.

Jan 17, 2020 at 01:39 PM

technic
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p.11 #20 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long?

mawz wrote:
I agree I think Sony's largely hit a tech plateau with the mkIV platform, barring them finally getting a workable and economic global shutter sensor.

I don't think the other players are there yet, but it looks like we'll see rapid iteration there. Frankly Nikon's hardware is probably up to the task while it's the software implementation that lags (since it's comparable hardware to the A7III which is pretty much there already), while Canon seems to have the software nailed, but is held back by the fact that their current FF Mirrorless are recycling old DSLR sensors which cannot keep up...Show more →

Sony A9 has the lead in ML cameras for real action (fast AF, high framerate, minimal viewfinder blackout etc.) using stacked sensor, technology that is totally lacking at Canikon (although Nikon might use the Sony tech in future camera). Probably it is too expensive for more widespread use but it's essential to make a jump forward compared to top DSLRs that currently lead for action (if you ignore A9). And cameras like D500 offer excellent AF performance at a much lower price level than Sony A9 (not everyone needs FF ...).

Other factor that is holding mirrorless back from a real jump forward is the almost total lack of computational imaging. This is most visible compared to recent smartphones, but it is one of the features that would more easily separate ML cameras from DSLRs. ML requires more electronics and processing power than DSLR so it makes sense to use that as the basis for computational imaging. But like with very fast ML AF, it looks like the technology/cost is not quite there yet and will probably take at least a few years before we see something compelling. For now there is nothing more than a "promise" that ML is more suitable for this than DSLR platform.

While Canon has nice technology with DPAF especially for video it has its own issues, see recent discussions on Canon forum. I would not want a camera that fully relies on DPAF for focus.

Global shutter is another feature that could help some people make the jump, depending on implementation. There are still a lot of technological steps in the pipeline that can entice users to upgrade to ML (I'm assuming most of them won't be implemented on DSLR, but who knows); hopefully we won't have to buy a new camera (and wait several years) for every one of those steps.

Jan 17, 2020 at 04:27 PM

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