CIPA statistics were released for January today, and at first glance it looks like things took a turn for the worst.
Total unit shipments were down across the board with only 80.6% shipping on January 2018 versus January 2017, and digital stills cameras as a whole including compacts was 71.8% of January 2017's volume.
While this seems like bad news overall, we have to remember to take into account the Kumamoto earthquake and the fact that many products were delayed until the start of 2017. This produced more shipments in the first quarter of 2017 than what would have normally occurred.
So while the shipments are lower, they probably aren't that much lower than what a “normal” January 2017 would have looked like.
Canon News details some interesting data in regards to the Americas, as they suggest;
Americas unit value approached the 50% marketshare for the first time, again based upon the low volume of units shipped. It should be noted that unit value marketshare has been wildly variable to the Americas. However, approaching the 50/50 as far as unit value shipped is a milestone worth noting.