Japanese 2012 market analysis: Only High End product sales didn’t decline.

The Japanese agency Cipa published the full Digital Camera Market sales analysis for 2012. The report is available in Japanese only but here are some key info:

. Japanese Companies produced 44% less cameras (14,4 Million cameras).
– The compact camera production declined by 50% (11,2 Million cameras produced).
– The DSLR and the Mirrorless production declined by 25% (3,1 Million cameras produced).
– Only High End Camera and Lens sales saw a small growth. There is a growth of 14,1% in the Full Frame Lens production while APS-C lens production felt by 21 %.
– In the Japanese DSLR segment Sony has a 6,1% share. In 2010 Sony had 7,8%. Canon (52,2%) and Nikon (33,6%) are the leaders.

Summary: Smartphones are eating up the compact camera market and the System Camera market is saturated. The good news for Sony is that they produce most of the imaging sensors for smartphones (for Apple iPhone’s for example). The bad news is that Sony is still not an important player in the only camera segment that is growing. The High End Full Frame system. That’s where Sony has to put their efforts. The new NEX-FF is a step into the right direction but I hope cheap FF A-mount cameras will come in early 2014 too!

Click on these two thumbnails to see the most sold Mirrorless and DSLR cameras:

found via Photoscala.

Amazon camera market rankings:
US ranking (Click here).
DE ranking (Click here).
UK ranking (Click here).
FR ranking (Click here).