Mirrorless shares in Japan during the last 12 months. Source BCN, Graph Dicahub, via Mirrorlessrumors.
Japan is really a “different” market than Europe or North America. Here size really matters and therefore Mirrorless is having a huge success. And the last 12 months Olympus managed to increase their market share in the mirrorless segment to up to 25,7%. Panasonic also had a small growth to up to 11,8%. The surprise here is Sony that despite their big Full Frame camera launch lost 12% market share!
Would be nice to see such kind of data for Europe and North America too but sadly there is no such thing yet. All we can look at are the Amazon digital camera rankings (Click here). And DSLR still rules the world here…
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Surprising that Canon is on par with Panasonic; explains Canon’s relaxed attitude.
Also surprising that Sony’s share is dropping. I see a7s everywhere I go in the States. “Size really matters in Japan”, except that smaller size is preferred there. Good for them. I am myself waiting for the 2016 Mazda 2.
Q: More importantly, did they show total revenue of the segment?
Revenue have nothing to do with market shares, only the unit volume sold is important there. Revenue is important to the health of a company, though, so it would be interesting to see how they compare.
Canon’s mirrorless line may do reasonably well in Japan (and perhaps the rest of Asia?), but not in the Americas and Europe, where they didn’t even bother to release the EOS M2.
I’m really amazed as well by Canon’s share. Just one underdeveloped, slow to focus body and two lenses, hardly any R&D, and yet they’re doing better then Panasonic and Fuji, who have multiple lines of impressive camera’s and an almost full range of wonderful lenses. What’s going on? Do they give an M away with every Rebel sold in Japan?
I wonder if the graph show mirrorless cameras only or also compact cameras. Plus: why are the writings in Korean?
It’s only mirrorless ILCs. Compact cameras would give Canon and Nikon larger shares. ‘Mirrorless’ in camera industry publications refers to interchangeable lens cameras.
Dicahub.com, where the graph comes from, is a Korean site.
I was gonna translate it, but then realized it’s pretty self-evident. Love it when we can break the language barriers so easily! 🙂
Admin: There is another graph on their site showing longer term trend, which draws a different picture. Sony may be winning out after all.
Not that it changes much, but they have released four EF-M lenses (18-55mm, 55-200mm, 11-22mm and the 22mm prime). Not sure if all are available in all markets, though.
Regarding their relative success in Japan, I think it shows the strength of the brand name among consumers, plus I think they are selling the bodies at really low prices.
One brand of mirrorless camera fans accusing another brand of mirrorless of being slow to focus.
That’s like crows accusing parrots of being birds.
I’m using Canon DSLR’s for over a decade, professionally, and yes, I’m also working with a Sony A7 and A7R and using Panasonic and Olympus m43’s camera’s for family outings. It’s not that I favor one brand over the other. Each have their strengths. As far as the Canon M goes, I tried the Canon M, liked the touchscreen and interface, and would have loved to get one, especially if I could use some of my smaller Canon EF lenses on the M. Well, you can, but it’s not all fun and games. Well, some birds can just fly a little bit faster then others. The M is just not as good as the best system camera’s out there. So, I’m still amazed by the numbers presented. Indeed, a brand name goes a long way, it seems.
Jeeeeees. Do you know at all what you are talking about?
By the specs sheets, I don’t find Sony A7 line bodies small, throw there some required focal lengths and even with f/4 they become large. Like example Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro feels sometimes big, but usually just small. (Because it feels big when you handle it at home/desk etc, but feels so small when using it). But then again same thing is with Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 Pro, it can feel big, but then it can feel so damn small. And when you take it in use its just blowing mind how small and light it really is, even when it is largest m4/3 objective.
And trying to get same for Sony A7 cameras, no more, not again. Why A7r just collects dust 🙁
What a logic.
oh…such boredom…pulease….tell us something exciting that you are holding back on about the EM5II.
Interesting that Canon EOS M and Pentax Q are on the same level as Panasonic m4/3. And also interesting that Fujifilm is such a small player in their home market.
If I had to guess about Europe and North America, I would say that the gap between Sony and Olympus is wider, the gap between Olympus and Panasonic is smaller, and that Fujifilm is clearly above Nikon, Canon and Ricoh (in that order). Samsung doesn’t seem to be a player in Japan, but in the rest of the world they probably outsell some of the other companies.
Samsung is not a player for the simple reason that it is not being sold in Japan. It’s Korean brand, therefore is actively snubbed here.
Samsung smartphones are ubiquitous and popular in Japan.
The NX are not sold because the last thing anyone needs is yet another lens mount.
This guess is based on… what?
The fact that Olympus is known to not be doing as well in the Western markets as Sony, or even Panasonic.
Nikon and Canon hasn’t done very well in mirrorless here, either. Canon didn’t even release the M2 outside Asia, and one of their lenses wasn’t released in North America. Ricoh makes the Pentax Q, which is known to only be a big seller in parts of Asia. I would be very surprised if Fujifilm wasn’t ahead of these three companies.
Samsung is reportedly quite big in Asia (outside Japan), and at least in Some European countries, they have a big presence as well. You can actually find their NX cameras in many stores that don’t stock any Fujifilm or m4/3 cameras.
Basically, I was just guessing based on my own observations, reading of articles, and my gut feeling.
I don’t think the Pentax Q was a big seller anywhere. I’ve never seen one outside a store.
Olympus prices their products much more competitively in Japan and overprices them in the U.S. and Europe, which is why they still sell well in Japan. If you convert to U.S. dollars, some of the prices over the past month were the E-M1 and 12-40mm for about $1500 USD, the E-M5 and 12-40mm PRO kit for about $950 USD, and the E-P5/17mm/VF-4 kit for about $750. All about $500-600 less than what they cost in the states.
No, that’s just exchange rate nonsense. Two or three years ago I would buy lenses from Amazon US or B&H to ship to my home in Japan because they were cheaper than buying here. Not anymore, with then yen 50% cheaper than it was then.
wow, panny’s market share really shrank. Barely on par with Canon’s. No wonder they shook up their whole product line.
A few years ago, Oly used to be ahead of Sony. But things are looking up for 2015. They might be ahead again.
It’s hard to draw conclusions about trends from this, considering how much the market shares fluctuate during the course of a year, especially Sony’s and Canon’s.
I would like to see a chart that covers the last three years or so.
Please notice that this is just the ranking within mirrorless.
Nobody said that it wasn’t.
Olympus’ gain matches Panasonic’s loss. Overall m43 held steady. I like having 2 major players in m43 and hope Panasonic stays profitable enough to stay in the market.
Where in that chart does it show “Overall m43 held steady?”
Both Olympus’ and Panasonic’s market shares are there, so you can add them up yourself. They went up from 30.6% in January to 37.5% in December.
Don’t you mean Olympus? I mean, Panasonic is doing well overall… Olympus on the other hand isn’t.
Plus, I’d wager those sales based off of pitting their cameras on sale. The OMD line stinks sales wise in japan.
Olympus achieved this by discount the price in Japan, as a result, the whole Asia are having much lower prices as well: The Japanese price in January 2015, E-M1 and 12-40mm for about $1500 USD, the E-M5 and 12-40mm PRO kit for about $950 USD, and the E-P5/17mm/VF-4 kit for about $750.
Some eBay sellers are selling new EM5 bodies for under $350 USD.
Because of declining sales, we will continue to see Fire Sale prices. All the camera manufacture need to adjust production downward to match the new reality.
As I said above, this is due to exchange rates, not different pricing. Prices haven’t dropped in Japan at all (they’ve gone up a bit, actually), but the yen/dollar rate has gone from around 80 2 years back to around 120 now.
That means a 150,000 yen body costs US$1275 now as opposed to over $1800 two years back. The actual price hasn’t changed at all in Japan.
Year to year data reveals a very different story.
http://www.bcnranking.jp/award/section/hard/hard94.html
Could you please translate?
Mirror less a “huge success” in Japan? More successful than other territories but hasn’t mirror less sales just stalled?I mean, it’s nice Olympus gained share, but it’s within the stalled total.
It’s stalled because no-one except Very Serious Photo Enthusiasts are buying cameras anymore. Camera sales will continue to drop, and there is not much anyone can do to stop the decline. Gey used to it.
“Get used to it”- I wasn’t arguing that point. I was highlighting that you would read the article and think the market has really grown.
Rumor site administrators live in a world where EVERYTHING has to be positive for their chosen brand, i.e. a drop in sales of 10% is a good thing because another brand lost 11% 😀
The “Get used to it” was a comment on the Administrators need to show negatives as positives. It was not aimed at you.
It’s a huge success for a declining market. Walk around Tokyo and you see a lot of people with mirrorless cameras.
What has this got to do with the new E-M5 II?
No one said so ^^.
Go easy on OM-G. His brain capacity only allows one thought process at a time.
“The surprise here is Sony that despite their big Full Frame camera launch lost 12% market share!”
Not a surprise to me, Full Frame is a loser. The rapidly diminishing ‘casual user’ market doesn’t want BIG heavy lenses. There are not enough ‘enthusiasts’ to support a viable FF market. Sony and Nikon are the losers in the FF debacle.
In the USA, some people are still driving to work in four-wheel-drive One Ton Pickup trucks.
Yeah, m43 is enough for casual users, and enthusiasts don’t buy Sony, at least not their mirrorless toys. But telephones are not far below m43. So I see multiple victims to the blasting of the great photo bubble. Sad times ahead, indeed.
I would say m43 is closer to FF than a telephone to m43.
Accurate.
Pricewise, yes. Quality-wise, not.
there is more to photography than “pushing a button to make a sensor record an image through a lens”. as such I agree that m43 is closer to FF than smartphones.
the saving grace for smartphones is that it’s the one you always have with you, to let you capture that particular thing you encounter during your daily life. That’s great, but if you dedicate some time and effort to, and want to take control over your photography, a smartphone is just meh. Here m43 (and mirrorless in general) offer a much more satisfying experience – closer to professional camera’s and in many cases preferable.