update on a rocky market

The Japanese newspaper Nikkei has collected and published data on camera deliveries in 2021. The market is very hectic and dominated by five Japanese brands.

It’s a reality, the marketdigital camera in the world is in bad shape. A bad form accentuated by the concurrence des smartphones then the Covid crisis which began in 2020, and which does not seem to want to improve. The figures published by le journal nippon Nikkei are quite evocative, even if 2021 was a better year than 2020.

2021 remains a weak year

2020 was arguably one of the worst years for the digital camera industry, with shipments down 40% worldwide. Only 8.85 million units had been shipped, in a year marked by the health crisis. If we could think that the market would recover when the crisis was less heavy, it was a mistake. Shipments continued to decline in 2021 according to Nikkei, with 8.49 million devices shipped, down 4.1%.

According to Nikkei, more than 94% of the market share is held by just five Japanese companies. ©Nikkei

What is also interesting to draw from all these published figures is the distribution of market shares in the sector. 94.4% of the market is held by five Japanese brands. It is Canon which dominates the exchanges, with 45.8% of market share, a figure down however by 2.1% compared to 2020. Sony comes second and even allows itself to grab shares, with 27%, 4.9 points more than in 2020.

A market that needs to change strategy

In third place in the ranking is Nikon, which holds 11.3% market share. The brand is followed by Fujifilm and its 5.9% market share, a very slight increase (+0.3%) compared to 2020. Finally, Panasonic closes the ranking, holding 4.4 % market share – a figure unchanged in one year. The rest of the sector is occupied by brands such as OM Digital Solutions, Hasselblad, Pentax and Leica.

If the health crisis explains part of the difficulties encountered by the sector, we can also highlight the fierce competition from smartphones or the rising price of high-end devices.

Panasonic announced moreover in the middle of the week make a change of strategy. The brand is temporarily suspending the production of compact digital cameras, which have strong competition from smartphones, and is focusing on high-end devices with significant added value.

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