Image courtesy: Personal View.
The Japanese organization CIPA posted the camera worldwide shipment data for July. There is little to tell here. The good thing is that mirrorless is till growing although a bit slowly. But this is good news if you consider the system camera market as a whole is actually shrinking during 2014.
To learn more about the camera market tendency click over to Personal View to see some nice graphs!
37 Responses
Doom and gloom, especially in the DSLR market. Canon just discounted all of its lenses to increase revenue and everybody else will likely follow. One is less prone to migrate to a different mount (mirrorless?) with new glass in their bag.
The future of mirrorless does not look very bright either. Nothing wrong with the gear. It’s just that the camera market seems quite saturated at the moment. People will buy cameras only after their old ones are broken, like it used to be in the days of film.
speaking about the days of film…
People start buying new gear if there are revolutionary new features.
4K video with breathtaking quality is suddenly in the price range for normal people. It allows postprocessing with cropping, digital antishake and a lot more.Together with the ability to publish the results worldwide for free, we have a revolution.
In the days of film, everybody could buy professional photo gear and produce perfect pictures. This was not possible with film. Publishing pictures was difficult and publishing film almost impossible.
This is a completely new area for creative people. We see revolution in the making and Mirrorless is the way to go.
4K is relevant to a small minority of camera users. Only a few filmmakers need it, know how to maximize its potential in editing, have access to the bandwidth required to publish it and can readily notice the difference between 4K and 2K. Even fewer can create content worthwhile of all the hassle involved. Basically, 4K is for cinema and this will not change in the foreseeable future.
Apart from specialized applications such as super high quality video and stills, virtually all the needs of a typical user are satisfied by a mid-range DSLR or mirrorless camera. Even less than that is enough. This is why people do not rush to buy a new camera every two years anymore. Look what happened in the PC market 15 years ago. The same is happening now for photo gear.
Mirrorless is indeed the way to go, but not because of any concrete advantage. Simply, the mirror box and prism are surplus remnants of a past technology. Once they do not contribute anything meaningful evolutionary principles will dictate their extinction.
Actually it’s the same like stills. You are shooting in the highest possible resolution and you have room for cropping and downsizing for the much lower resolution of the screen.
Most people using 4K today are downsizing the results to full HD. There is room to do some cropping, digital antishake and get rid of the distortion. The final result is simply better.
4K just started to be an option for normal people. We will see a fast technical development with higher fps, and more functions in postprocessing.
I disagree with 4K being reserved or in demand by a small minority. Much of that line of thinking is a result of stills photographers who are either uninterested, intimidated or lack the skill to also be videographers, or hybrid shooters.
High resolution video is so hotly in demand, hundreds of hackers spent over a year and thousands of man hours developing in camera RAW via Magic Lantern for the 5Dmk3. The GH3 was a mainstay for hundreds of short films, indie movies and small budget productions in under 2 years. Panasonic had to double GH4 production just to keep up with demand. Vimeo averages 4 brand spanking new GH4 film shorts every week.
High resolution, high quality video for cheap has always in demand, but seemed like a distant dream since it was typically reserved for high end devices like the high end camcorders, or production devices like the RED Epic, C100, FS700, Alexa, etc.
I may be wrong, but I think that there’s more ppl shooting in jpeg with no PP at all than ppl interested in a complicated PP workflow.
Same with movies.
Shoot (mainly selfies) and share right away is the thing.
True.. post process is time consuming & requires expertise and unless you’re a professional required to do it or an enthusiast cherishing his “keepers”, it’s just not worth it. Most people would be happy to share holiday photos from a hotel lobby with free WiFi. Also, unless the photos are shared in a way that enables viewers to appreciate their quality, no dedicated camera is even needed. Sad but true.
Can’t wait for all the experts to weigh-in….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. 🙂
please no
Mirrors have no useful functions in a digital camera.
Yes they do, sometimes you have to take the lens off and check your hair and make-up. Very useful.
smartphones have such a function already
solution drop price.. for example Gh4 for 700$ GX7 400$ GM1 200$ ecc ecc
I wish they’d include enthusiast compacts with the numbers. It might seem irrelevant, but they have become a very real and viable segment that didn’t exist 5 years ago. And a very real alternative for people who would only use kit lenses with their dslr/ilc.
If that’s what you call growing…
To me, it looks like full on stagnation. Slightly better than 2013, slightly worse than 2012. And nothing in sight that would change this trend.
I think the numbers for second half are gonna be more interesting and important. Looking at past years, it seems that the most of action is happening after August. Plenty of new exciting cameras will show up on the market in coming weeks. If that can’t make a change, then I don’t know what can.
I’m not sure what else you would call it ??
If an economy dips, when it starts growing again it is called …er ‘growth’
And if an economy grows when all other economies around it are falling it is considered a good performance.
And that is what is happening with mirrorless cameras. Growing when camera sales are falling overall (plummeting in some cases) is a good performance.
Whether it is enough to make them profitable is another question, probably not related to growth but more to how much the manufacturers’ costs fall as the technology matures.
Well, I’ve called it stagnation, so you don’t have to be unsure 🙂
As for growth, something that you see on those graphs occurring in Aug-Nov 2013, that I’d call growth. When the numbers are within a statistical error range, that’s not growth at all. And flat line when the competition falls does not make it growth as well.
And to get the whole picture, we need to look at year on year numbers, and so far, those are not looking good. But I’d refrain from predicting the results for this year, as the second half might get interesting.
The interesting part seems to be the mirrorless holding a similar sales pattern and DSLRs in a very worrying fall. So as a percentage of sales mirrorless is up, there are more cameras in the mirrorless than last year. But the whole market is depressed. I would rather be in the mirrorless market at the moment. It will only get worse for DSLRs with the GH4 carving a name for itself and the E-m1 selling well along with Sony and Fuji.
Flat and down. Zero growth. At best a holding pattern, the long term trend for the industry is down.
Rather than units shipped by manufacturers, which can serve just to stuff the pipeline, would like to know actual units sold at retail, and the trend of average price per unit over the last 5 years.
2004-2010 growth was the anomaly, I’m guessing. This is just a reversion to mean.
Or perhaps strong steady sales indicates the ever growing strength of mirrorless vs plummeting production sales in the DSLR segment. I’m guessing.
Amazing! And then some complain about trolls taking the mickey.
I had to pull my chair up and get my magnifying glass to validate this chart. Ah yes, it appears the last bubble in the line went up a smidge. Now my eyes hurt.
More importantly, look at that gap between DSLRs and mirrorless. No wonder someone had to create a troll army.
The future is large format film. I’m talking 24×30 for everyone. We’re going full circle and the next stop is trolly land, big cameras and massive sheets of film. People will no longer take pictures to remember a moment- they will take it to relive that moment. 24×30 will get you there:)
This only further validates that mirrorless camera users were ahead of the curve. It’s amazing that mirrorless camera sales are still increasing in spite of DSLRs being on display in virtually every retailer chain, a possessing a much stronger global presence and better run sales admins.
Sales are down dramatically every year for DSLRs while mirrorless sales increase, yet a small minority of commenters here on this website still laughably insist mirrorless cameras are a “phase”. According to the data, peak DSLR sales occur in June and November:
June 2014 – 800,000 DSLRs
June 2013 – 1.2 million DSLRs
June 2012 – 1.6 million DSLRs
That’s almost a 50% drop in DSLR sales since 2012!!! Where I live here in Houston, TX, mirrorless cameras move off the shelves quite often and DSLRs languish for months on end. Canon’s and Nikon’s sales are so piss poor they even Canon marked down all their lenses and still nothing improved.
Then look at Olympus, the black sheep of mirrorless camera companies caught defrauding investors/government regulators of fraudulent sales figures, and struggling to borrow money to fund their negative balance sheets still pull off a consistent 22% increase year after year…and that’s off ONE camera line with ONE sensor amid intense competition providing quite superior offerings from Panasonic, Fujifilm and Sony. On top of that, Olympus still managed to pull a 70% gain in their OM line inside the most brutal mirrorless market of all, the USA.
DSLRs are quickly becoming a dying breed, much more so for Nikon since they hardly make any of their own sensors and don’t have a cinema line to fall back on like Canon. Or look at how Canon has recycled the same APS-C sensor in their Rebel line since 2009 in a world where people upgrade their smartphones and computers every year to two years.
Both of CannNikon’s demise are happening at a faster rate than the likes of former global photography powerhouse Kodak, yet Cannikon spout the lame excuse blaming smartphones and the global economy for years of embarrassingly weak sales. Come on, really? DSLR sales are poor because their products are not good enough, save the 5Dmk3 or D810.
Canon’s excuse for not innovating? They refuse to cannibalize their cinema line. Why add focus peaking and 4k or approve in-camera RAW in their APS-C line or 5Dmk3 when that’s a “high end” feature reserved for the C100, C200 or 1DX? Nikon has no such excuse. Nikon is much smaller company than Canon but they still possess the resources and know how to build amazing 4k ready full frame DSLRs, and amazing mirrorless cameras better than the shitty Nikon 1 or J1. Only Sony is actually doing what Canon and Nikon should have done years ago. Until they decide to change and adapt, which based on their actions in the face of epic failing DSLR sales is unlikely, mirrorless is the future. Period.
Epic yawn… Life in Houston must be boring.
If your broke, then yes that is certainly possible.
Sorry John but mirrorless sales peaked in 2012 at just over 600000 units now its 300000 that is also a 50% drop since peak on what is a new technology and should be on the ascendancy . The sales numbers still put DSLR on 72-75% of the interchangeable camera market , take into account the large number of companies sharing the mirrorless market and its 25-28% market share this year is hardly amazing, and consequently the huge losses declared by all the camera divisions of the major mirrorless players in the last few years some of which including Olympus have been huge do not come as a surprise.
The Nikon 1 system has two weakness high initial prices and the sensor used is more optimized for speed of performance than best image quality. The Nikon v1 AF, fps ,speed of use ETC has only recently been matched by the very best mirrorless models.
The best 1″ sensor as used in the Sony , competes very well regarding DR, & color depth with even the best mFT options , while being less than a stop poorer at high ISO. In fact for a low ISO shooter { say under 800ISO} they are pretty tempting and capable of very decent results in most areas, The various 1″ sensor cameras already on the market cover quite an interesting selction which includes a waterproof camera [ AW1] , a truly compact go everywhere p&s with built in EVF,& fastish zoom lens very fast if we ignore equivalence lol [rx100III], a high spec weather sealed constant aperture zoom lens camer [RX10] the monstor zoom lens 25-400mm [equiv] zoom with 4k thrown in [ FZ1000], Nikon have lenses covering from 18mm-810mm [equiv] and deliver decent AF speed using the Nikon DSLR lens adapter which covers focal lengths all the way out to 3240mm ! [ using the 1200mm lens]
Even as a happy mFT user [ e-m1/gh3] I must honestly say that for much of my shooting my RX1003 delivers excellent results in a truly tiny body.Obviously for specialist uses mFT wins hands down .But I really think that in the long run the 1″ sensor could have a lot of potential
“…mirrorless sales peaked in 2012 at just over 600000 units now its 300000 that is also a 50% drop since peak on what is a new technology and should be on the ascendancy .”
Sorry mFT dude, that’s a conspiracy theory you made up out of thin air. These are the correct figures. I’ll even give you direct links to the CIPA data.
Mirrorless Production Sales:
June 2012 – 298,523
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201206_e.pdf
June 2013 – 221,330
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201306_e.pdf
June 2014 – 272,054
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201406_e.pdf
No, mirrorless sales did not peak in 2012.
No, mirrorless sales have never seen 600K production units in the month of June. I have no idea where you got these numbers from.
No, mirrorless sales haven’t seen any significant drops in units sales in the last 3 years the likes DLSR sales.
The only 50% drop is as I explained in DSLR shipments where sales have completely gone to shit year after year. Unlike mirrorless cameras which make steady growth no matter what.
“The Nikon 1 system has two weakness high initial prices and the sensor used is more optimized for speed of performance than best image quality.”
That’s your opinion, not a fact, and it’s my opinion the Nikon 1 is the most pitiful and insulting mirrorless offering from a company that possesses the skill and know-how to make one of the best cameras on planet earth, the revered D810. Nikon and Canon can easily make the best mirrorless cameras in the world if they WANTED to. But, since they refuse to adapt, for now, mirrorless is the future. Period.
I’m also sorry but I believe your claim of “…mirrorless sales peaked in 2012 at just over 600000 units now its 300000 that is also a 50% drop…” Is a conspiracy theory that you made up. Because here are the numbers.
Production Sales For June:
Mirrorless 2014: 272,054 / DSLR 2014: 866,434
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201406_e.pdf
Mirrorless 2013: 221,330 / DSLR 2013: 1,105,754
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201306_e.pdf
Mirrorless 2012: 298,523 / DSLR 2012: 1,777,424
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201206_e.pdf
Mirrorless 2011: 1,603,369 / DSLR 2011: 8,784,759
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201106_e.pdf
Mirrorless 2010: 1,083,443 DSLR 2010: 8,816,302
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d_201006.pdf
That translates to Mirrorless production sales dropping about 398.25% since 2010
(1,083,443 ÷ 272,054 = 3.98 x 100 = 398.25%)
And DSLR production sales dropping about 1,017.5% since 2010
(8,816,302 ÷ 866,434 = 10.17 x 100 = 1,017.5%)
At this rate of failure by Cannikon, it is clear that Mirrorless is the future, period.
There is no mirrorless data available for 2010 or 2011 but dont let that bother you feel free to make up whatever makes you happy. For example a decline from 600,000 mirrorless its peak sales to 300,000 is indeed a 50% decline. Ignoring your wrong interpretation of data for 2010/2011 which you exacerbated by being comically aggressive in its defence .The actual facts based on the CIPA data show that:
In 2012 the first time mirrorless {non-reflex} data was posted 16,200,451 DSLR’s were shipped and 3,956,602 mirrorless { a roughly 80% DSLR to 20% mirrorless split}
In 2013 13,825,569 DSLRs were shipped and 3,305,798 mirrorless cameras were shipped { a roughly 80% DSLR to 20% mirrorless split}
Between JAN-JUL 2014 5,977,100 DSLRs were shipped and 1,685,793 mirrorless { a roughly 79% DSLR to 21% mirrorless
split}
do you notice anything about those numbers , perhaps not
“There is no mirrorless data available for 2010 or 2011 but dont let that bother you feel free to make up whatever makes you happy.”
Except the actual CIPA data of which I provided direct links to. Provide some links of your own instead of fabricating numbers. I’ll provide the CIPA data for you once more:
Production Sales For June:
Mirrorless 2014: 272,054 / DSLR 2014: 866,434
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/docum…
Mirrorless 2013: 221,330 / DSLR 2013: 1,105,754
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/docum…
Mirrorless 2012: 298,523 / DSLR 2012: 1,777,424
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/docum…
Mirrorless 2011: 1,603,369 / DSLR 2011: 8,784,759
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/docum…
Mirrorless 2010: 1,083,443 DSLR 2010: 8,816,302
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/docum…
Again, in 2010 about NINE DSLRs were produced for every ONE Mirrorless camera produced.
With the available data for 2014, FOUR DSLRs are sold for every ONE Mirrorless camera produced.
At this rate of failure by Cannikon, Mirrorless still looks really good and shows once more that Mirrorless is the future, period.
So you are admitting that you posted a couple of years of BS data that did not even show mirrorless sales lol In which you base your ridiculous claims about DSLRs selling 9-1 compared to mirrorless .
You then base your conclusions on sales from one
given month each year .All that matters is the full year
Here is the breakdown for you two mFT nutters
2009 no separate mirror less listing
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d_2009.pdf
2010 no separate mirror less listings
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d_2010.pdf
2011 no separate mirror less listings
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d_2011_e.pdf
2012 mirror less finally gets a separate listing
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d_2012_e.pdf
In 2012 3,956,602 mirrorless cameras shipped { an average
of 329,000 per month} So far in the first 7 months of this year 1,766,463 units have sold { an average of 252,000 per month}
That is a drop of 24% on peak shipments and more critically Shipments are now exceeding production, which means that old typically hugely discounted stock are making up part of
the numbers.
The huge losses made by the imaging divisions of Olympus and Panasonic should make the financial failure clear to all but the most blind fanboy.
“So you are admitting that you posted a couple of years of BS data that did not even show mirrorless sales lol In which you base your ridiculous claims about DSLRs selling 9-1 compared to mirrorless .”
Now, the stats you cited are only shipments to the USA. I’m glad you’re hiding the fact you selectively omitted the DSLR stats, lol.
Here is the source CIPA documents:
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/dc_e.html
TOTAL SHIPMENTS TO USA IN JUNE:
2012 Mirrorless 1,800,742 DSLR 15,660,098
2013 Mirrorless 436,748 DSLR 10,283,222
2014 Mirrorless 2,061,360 DSLR 6,469,977
Yep, Mirrorless sales had a nasty dip in 2013, came back more than 3 times as strong in 2014, DSLR sales steadily falling flat.
TOTAL SHIPMENTS WORLDWIDE IN JUNE:
2012 Mirrorless 8,562,742 DSLR 68,977,566
2013 Mirrorless 7,685,160 DSLR 45,749,085
2014 Mirrorless 11,299,343 DSLR 33,421,147
Yep, DLSRs sales are falling hard, mirrorless still going strong.
According to the B.S. data you omitted, or your blind DSLR fanboy bias, mirrorless sales are projected to overtake DLSRs in the future unless Cannon and Nikon get their act together. Until then, mirrorless is the future. Period.
John , growth infers increased sales and ideally increased profits , when year on year mirrorless shipments have actually went down The fact that they have not went down by as much as DSLRs is little comfort .
On its release the Nikon 1 was overpriced and as for image quality it matched the most common 12mp mFT sensor at the time. With vastly superior performance { AF,C-AF,FPS , response time etc]. Looking at the results from the Sony 1″ sensor the gap between it and mFT is rather narrow
I agree with you. Both mirrorless and DSLR are both falling. However, it’s my personal belief that since Cannikon are falling in newly produced units at a faster rate than mirrorless that perhaps Cannikon should get off their ass an actually make better cameras instead of trying to force consumers into limited feature low end cameras, and upwards of $10K devices just to get 4K and focus peaking.
mFT dude, growth does infer increased sales, and the data shows mirrorless has steady increased sales. What part of that did you skip? Since June and August are the best months of sales for camera companies worldwide, comparing June stats shows:
Here is the source CIPA documents:
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/dc_e….
TOTAL SHIPMENTS TO USA IN JUNE:
2012 Mirrorless 1,800,742 DSLR 15,660,098
2013 Mirrorless 436,748 DSLR 10,283,222
2014 Mirrorless 2,061,360 DSLR 6,469,977
Yep, Mirrorless sales had a nasty dip in 2013, came back more than 3 times as strong in 2014, DSLR sales steadily falling flat.
TOTAL SHIPMENTS WORLDWIDE IN JUNE:
2012 Mirrorless 8,562,742 DSLR 68,977,566
2013 Mirrorless 7,685,160 DSLR 45,749,085
2014 Mirrorless 11,299,343 DSLR 33,421,147
Yep, DLSRs sales are falling hard, mirrorless still going strong.
My wild assumption is that based on this trend, mirrorless sales are projected to overtake DLSRs in the future unless Cannon and Nikon get their act together. Until then, mirrorless is the future. Period.