Camera Sales went down again in 2015

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #17915400
Absolutely.

smythie wrote in post #17915373
I wonder if longer product cycles could also be a contributing factor to the decline in camera sales

Or vice versa /aka chicken and the egg? Hard to say.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #17916824
Or vice versa /aka chicken and the egg? Hard to say.

Undisputably, the rooster came first!

I've always said egg, because heck dinosaurs laid eggs long before chickens did. But then I was an obnoxious know it all little child.

Was? What are you... bigger now?

DPReview had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Go Tokura, Group Executive ICP Group 2, Image Communications Products Operations, Canon Inc. and talk all things Canon imaging.

I’ve highlighted a couple of questions from the interview that I think are of the most importance:

What is your strategy for growth in this changed market? What do you need to do to differentiate?

“One of the differences between us and our competition is the EF lens lineup. We have a very broad base of EF lens users and we don’t want to do anything that would sacrifice their loyalty, so it’s a very high priority for us to satisfy their needs and meet their demands.

With regard to the overall market, maybe there’s a lack of vigor and it could be viewed as shrinking. Looking at the compact camera market, the bottom end is dropping considerably and the competition is smartphones. Smartphones offer a very easy, convenient way of taking photos. However in the high-end compact segment, at the high end there are cameras that offer functions and performance that smartphones cannot compete with and here we’re seeing growth. So in the compact market, offering features that smartphones cannot compete with is a way of differentiating and invigorating the market. “

If we assume that at some point in the future Canon will create an enthusiast or professional mirrorless camera, what are your benchmarks?

“This is just my personal opinion. In my view there are two key features that have to be addressed. The first is autofocus, particularly tracking of moving subjects. The other is the viewfinder. The electronic viewfinder would have to offer a certain standard. If those two functions were to match the performance of EOS DSLR camera performance, we might make the switch.

Tremendous progress has been made in electronic systems. However in terms of AF, pro-level AF functions, and the range of shooting situations that professional photographers can respond to, there’s still a gap between DSLRs and mirrorless systems.” Read the full interview at DPReview

the bottom end is dropping considerably and the competition is smartphones.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #17923367
the bottom end is dropping considerably and the competition is smartphones.

Hieno Hilbig, German photo industry analyst (he used to be head of photographic marketing for Olympus, and at some other company) said in a talk at CES 2015 that the correlation between smartphone increase and P&S decline has no statistical analysis indicating a correlation between the two events. And the audience, consisting of a lot of people from the photographic industry, largely agreed (few disagreed).

Wilt wrote in post #17923536
the correlation between smartphone increase and P&S decline has no statistical analysis indicating a correlation between the two events. And the audience, consisting of a lot of people from the photographic industry, largely agreed (few disagreed).

I was curious, so I watched part of his presentation from 17:45 - 27:00: https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=bfCJDIf-NeA

He asks if people disagree with him, then they can get up an leave. That's not exactly a great way to really measure agreement among the audience. I'd have wanted to get up and leave, but more likely to stay to listen to the rest of his presentation because it was still interesting.

I disagree with his charts on a very, very simple premise. He compares smartphone sales to camera production. That's why it's difficult to ascertain correlation. He should have been comparing smartphone sales to camera sales. Oranges to oranges.

He stated in his presentation that when the curves don't indicate causality, then something else must be going on. I'd be curious to investigate whether camera manufacturers were simply resisting the smartphones' market appeal by increasing advertising expenditures and correspondingly increasing camera production to meet expected increased demands.

During the transitionary period where consumers are decided between smartphones and cameras - whether to own either or both - there is bound to be some benefit to capture market share by appealing to those on the fence who haven't gone over to smartphones for their photographic needs.

I'd also like to run a similar analysis on landline and wireless telephone subscriptions - similar trends, I'd guess. Different topic, though.

Even better analysis of statistical problems in the presentation is MrThermadoor's comment about 15 main comments down. Super lengthy, but I think it's sound.

Nathan wrote in post #17945905
I was curious, so I watched part of his presentation from 17:45 - 27:00: https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=bfCJDIf-NeA

He asks if people disagree with him, then they can get up an leave. That's not exactly a great way to really measure agreement among the audience. I'd have wanted to get up and leave, but more likely to stay to listen to the rest of his presentation because it was still interesting.

I don't disagree, a simple 'raise your hands if you disagree' would have been better than even a tongue-in-cheek 'if you disagree you can choose to leave'! Having sat through a lot of presentations like this, it does not prevent probing questions from the audience at the end...I wish we could have heard those, and his responses!

Nathan wrote in post #17945905
I disagree with his charts on a very, very simple premise. He compares smartphone sales to camera production. That's why it's difficult to ascertain correlation. He should have been comparing smartphone sales to camera sales. Oranges to oranges.

Well, given that there is perhaps some degree of mismatch caused by production that goes into dealer inventory and does not sell but sits on shelves, you're right. OTOH, I doubt that the fundamental shape of the curve is altered, merely the magnitude represented. And besides, the evaluation was based upon Statistical correlation coefficient ρ, which is a reflection of shape and timing correlation.

Nathan wrote in post #17945905
He stated in his presentation that when the curves don't indicate causality, then something else must be going on. I'd be curious to investigate whether camera manufacturers were simply resisting the smartphones' market appeal by increasing advertising expenditures and correspondingly increasing camera production to meet expected increased demands.

Admittedly Hilbig left himself a convenient opening for placing blame of ease of use, which I think itself is somewhat simplistic. If ease of use were problematic, one would think that sales would have flattened and then declined much sooner than it did, and not have the peak of success in 2012... more than a dozen years after digital SLRs came onto the market.
He is nevertheless right in raising the question about WHAT -- if not the smartphone -- is causing the recent rapid declines in volume....find a cause and fix it, if you want your job to continue to exist.

I think a lot of the past demand was created by the simple technical evolution of the sensors. Now you need to increase resolution from 25Mpixel to 50Mpixel to achieve a 40% improvement in detail, whereas that same 40% was achieved with increase from 4Mbyte to 8Mbyte in the early days, or 8Mpixel to 16MPixel late in last decade! So inherent demand due to magnitude of the changes is diminished....4 MPixel increase from 25MPixel to 29MPixel is only 7% improvement which is scarcely detected and 8Mpixel increase on 25Mpixel to 33Mpixel is only 14% improvement. My explaination, and Hilbig's, are both INTERNALLY driven, not by outside forces of product displacement.

Nathan wrote in post #17945905
I'd also like to run a similar analysis on landline and wireless telephone subscriptions - similar trends, I'd guess. Different topic, though.

Yeah, wireless easily substitutes for the landline, while the old type cannot go portable like the wireless. Plus wireless has the texting (and sexting), neither of which the landline offers.
dSLRs have a lot to offer photographically than smartphones, the only thing that smartphones have is easy portability, so they have different appeal and not much correlation. Certainly the smartphone does cannibalize point and shoot functionality, but Hilbig disputes even a correlation there!.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #17916824
Or vice versa /aka chicken and the egg? Hard to say.

The Egg came first

Wilt wrote in post #17916831
Undisputably, the rooster came first!

A rooster didn't exist until the egg came first...but it's still funny :P

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #17916837
I've always said egg, because heck dinosaurs laid eggs long before chickens did. But then I was an obnoxious know it all little child.

I could never figure it out...then it dawned on me one day... The egg came first! Something evolved into a chicken and there is a point where that "something" is considered a chicken. Before it was a chicken, it was something else. The animal that gave birth the first chicken was actually not a chicken.

The question is supposed to show if someone believes in evolution or religion. But we can't really discuss religion here.

Wilt wrote in post #17916831
Undisputably, the rooster came first!

BlakeC wrote in post #17945942
A rooster didn't exist until the egg came first...but it's still funny :P

I see someone finally caught on to the joke I was making here!

You are right, though, something laid an egg which developed somewhat accidentally into the primitive chicken, and it survived and did well enough to continue the Darwin saga.
And somehow it found another evolved thing that it could mate with, to create others.

it does cause me to wonder, if via the miracles of the medical means of increasing survivability even of 'defective' organisms, that we humans are not causing a DECLINE in the quality of our own gene pool...even the less than fit survive!

I think a more telling statistic would be the trend of relative numbers of print vs. internet display of photographs. One must ask what percentage of smartphone-taken photos are ever printed. The vast majority I would wager end up on Facebook, Instagram and other social media where the resolution does not have the demands of a large print. In that milieu, the differences between a smartphone image and an SLR image taken in good light are not perceptible unless you look really hard for it. The average person couldn't tell. For a while, people were buying SLRs because of the "professional" sheen that they conveyed. To put it another way, it was a fad. And it was fostered by the megapixel wars. People who didn't invest in improving their skills were finding that an expensive camera with a large sensor wasn't making their photography better. For a while, the marketers could offer them more megapixels in their quixotic journey to improve their results, which probably kept sales up. All the while, smartphone cameras were getting better and matching the number of megapixels in a lot of the large cameras (in spite of it being relatively meaningless). Their friends were taking good pictures on their phones while the SLR crowd was lugging around heavy interchangeable lens cameras that got dust on their sensors every time they made a sloppy lens change. That's a temptation to leave the SLR at home and of course not upgrade.

I don't think a comparison of smart phone sales to compact camera sales is going to shed light on the true reality. People have had smart phones for a long time. I suspect that many more came to rely on them as their primary camera as the quality improved. That statistic would be harder to come by.

Will comment more later. Just wanted to add a clarifying point that I don't think in any way do smartphones replace DSLRs. I exclude DSLRs entirely. Instead, I think there's a correlation between increased adoption in smartphones and the decrease in compact camera sales. You also have to define compact cameras narrowly, too, since they should not include advanced mirrorless cameras that are coming onto the scene and gaining market traction (Fuji XPro2, here I come!).

I'm a little confused by Hilbig's explanation about the Fun Factor. I haven't watched that part of the presentation, though. However, what's the difference between saying a smartphone's "fun factor" is the cause behind declining camera sales versus a smartphone being the cause? Again, I may be missing the point because I'm guessing at what his reasoning is. I have to watch the rest of the video.

I do think that there would be a stronger correlation found if he looked at compact camera sales instead of camera production. I'd have to look again at his charts, but I'm not sure if he included the years when smartphone camera sensors were nothing to cheer about. Now, they're very acceptable to the masses.