The Japanese website BCNranking displayed the latest data about the Japanese camera market. There are a couple of interesting points:
Most sold cameras with interchangeable lenses (May 2011):
The first two position are held by the two entry level cameras from Nikon and Canon. The best placed Sony camera is the [shoplink 3003]Sony NEX-5[/shoplink] on Pos. 7 with 5.3% volume share. In Japan NEX cameras are more popular than the Sony SLT and DSRL cameras. Take into consideration that in Japan one third of all sold system cameras are mirrorless!
Mirrorless Market Share (January to May 2011):
Olympus volume share is 37.95% of the whole mirrorless camera. Right behind you find Sony (32.02%) and than Panasonic (30.03%). The year 2010 ended with following shares Panasonic (38.7%), Sony (32.2%), Olympus (29.1%). As you see Sony didn’t gain any market share. I guess one of the main reason could be the lack of new NEX lenses 🙁
Market share for all interchangeable cameras:
If you count the all interchangeable cameras (Mirrorless and DSLR) than Canon leads with 29.3%, followed by Nikon (27.4%), Sony (15.0%), Olympus (12.7%) and Panasonic (9.7%). Canon and Nikon both loosed market share during the last months. Sony made small steps forward but I guess the upcoming new A77 A65 and NEX-7 can give them a new sales boost.
You can’t have those detailed sales details in other countries. The only very unreliable and partial measurement for non japanese countries are the Amazon TOP sold camera rankings:
Amazon US rankings (Click here)
Amazon DE rankings (Click here)
Amazon UK rankings (Click here)
Amazon FR rankings (Click here)
Amazon IT rankings (Click here)
15 Responses
Thanks for interesting news! I love Sony’s SLT and Nex and from this report, I can foresee more cameras and lens soon from Sony to compete with Canon and Nikon. That’s all Sony needs to do. More variety and choices for customers.
What is interesting here is that Canon has lost a lot of ground in the last year, and Olympus & Panasonic have surged, probably because of the introduction of new M43 cameras since the introduction of the original NEX cameras. Nikon & Sony have held onto roughly the same market share that they held a year ago. I agree that the cameras Sony will introduce in August are likely to change this balance once again, and I believe that the D400 will also have a serious impact on Canon–but how will Canon respond? Surely they will play cards of their own.
Didn’t Sony have about 10% a year ago? That’s a 50% increase of marketshare in a growing market.
I can’t see Olympus’ significant market share growth being a global phenomenon.
Probably you’re right; & Panasonic’s isn’t either, but perhaps greater than Olympus.
It seems Canon is getting shaky in the legs, as they are apparently planning to jump on the mirrorless bandwagon beginning next year. It is funny to read comments from Canon shooters to the tune of, “finally, a serious camera (from Canon) to stomp out those other toy mirrorless cameras…” Ha!
Yes Canon have changed their tune from “WE are too big for mirrorless” im March 2011
http://photorumors.com/2011/03/18/canon-doesnt-need-a-
mirrorless-compact-system-camera/
To this “Maybe we should consider” in July
http://www.canonrumors.com/2011/07/canon-mirrorless-on-the-horizon/
And have even filed a patent to protect their @ss
http://www.canonrumors.com/2011/03/first-canon-mirrorless-related-patent/
Nice to see the Top Dogs looking over their sholders.
🙂
If these numbers are correct then it seems as if Olympus sells most system cameras of all manufacturers in Japan right? Using a factor 2 for DSLRs and 1 for mirrorless (without normalisation):
1. Olympus (12,7*2 + 37,95 = 63,35)
2. Sony (15*2 + 32,02 = 62,02)
3. Canon (29,3*2 = 58,6)
Or am I misscalculating in any way?
Sry, mis-read. The other number was the total share, nvm. Move along, nothing to see here…
Country-by-country data may not be reliably available outside Japan (but IIRC, somebody has touted some numbers from the UK, so there may be data available there…?), HOWEVER, the worldwide market-share numbers come out of IDC, and were reported for 2010 by Bloomberg, back in April:
All digital cameras
– Canon #1 at 19% (same market-share as last year)
– Sony #2, up 1% to 17.9% (from 16.9%)
– Nikon #3, at 12.6%
– Samsung #4, at 11.1%
Overall market-volume is up 10%, so even companies whose “market SHARE” is flat may be seeing growth in absolute numbers-sold. 🙂
For SLR’s (which iirc IDC has previously rolled-in with “all interchangable-lens systems, including mirrorless/etc non-SLRs”), the numbers are very different, with STEEP drop-offs from #1-to-#2-to-#3-to-#4 …
#1 Canon 44.5%
#2 Nikon 29.8%
#3 Sony 11.9%
#4 Olympus 5.1%
If you add these up, “everyone else” (Pentax, the non-Oly parts of the 4/3s crew… etc) comes in at 8.7% combined.
No idea if Hasselblad and the other medium-format sales are in there anywhere; but I suspect that (taken together) all MF sales wouldn’t even garner 1%.
If you prefer ratio’s over %’s, they are (roughly):
3:2 Can:Nik
3:1 Nik:Sony
2:1 Sony:Oly
or 9:6:2:1 Can:Nik:Sony:Oly
FWIW and all that.
My data sourced from:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-15/sony-nikon-narrow-gap-to-canon-with-new-digital-camera-models.html
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-04-26-camera-rivals_n.htm
The interchangeable lens camera data sounds roughly similar to various anecdotal information I’ve come across. Panasonic is comfortably ahead of Pentax from what I understand, which would put the latter’s market share around 1%, give or take. Sony’s market share relative to Nikon seems to have dropped back a bit over the last year or so.
The “problem” with those numbers is that they are old and an average. Old because they cover end of march 2010 until end of march 2011, a period in which for example the NEX and SLT cameras were only partially available (SLT’s about half that period and often out of stock too). The fact Sony started out at or just below 10% market share has a strong influence on the average too. End of february this year, Sony already said that their actual market share at that time was closer to 15% and climbing.
Now all this numbers could be even more different because of tsunami.
Sony is a very sucessful company as they spent few year and then they gained a position just behind Canon and Nikon. I hope Sony should get more closer to two leading heads. Sony please release more lenses to compete with Canon and Nikon.
Very descriptive article, I enjoyed that a lot.
Will there be a part 2?