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BCN has released its 2024 awards for the annual year of 2023. BCN represents a good section of the Japan regional sales, giving us a look into the domestic pulse of the camera industry. Please make no mistake about it, these companies have a lot of pride and want to do well in the domestic market.
Canon did well overall but there is certainly some shocking information if you were a Canon Japan executive.
Canon placed first in DSLR, first in Compact Camera, and second in Mirrorless camera categories. This is good news overall for Canon as they continue to sell cameras well to the domestic market.
Now the big surprise of 2023; Canon did not place in the top 3 for lens sales for 2023. Canon until 2022 placed first in lens sales every single year since 2010. In 2022 Canon placed second but this year their best placement would have been fourth.
When you consider that Sigma and Tamron don't make Canon lenses for the RF mount – it means that the majority of users are enhancing kits in a camera mount other than the RF mount, further cementing another mount's importance. But around 60% of lens shipments into Japan are APS-C lenses and Canon doesn't have much of anything on the RF-S system yet.
It's difficult to determine what the reason for Canon's slide on lens market share could have been as there are quite a few variables that we do not know. It could very well be a combination of lens selection, price, and even availability as Canon has certainly struggled with having lenses even able to be sold in any market. Regardless of the reasons, I'm sure it is certainly a trend that Canon Japan's executives don't like to see.
Looking back at DLSRs we see that Canon has controlled the entire market, as it seems for the last 2 calendar years NIkon has left the market entirely for Canon.
It seems like it's just a matter of time now before Ricoh Imaging sells more DSLRs than Nikon. The DSLR market in Japan is incredibly small – shipping 35,000 units from January through November of 2023. That's compared to 440,000 Mirrorless cameras. I'm guessing that Nikon has just decided it's not worth the effort to sell 10,000 or so DSLRs in Japan.
The Japan Mirrorless market has been a 3 company race for the last 9 years between Canon, Sony, and Olympus. Since 2020 Canon's mirrorless offerings have not produced the same sort of market lead that Canon enjoyed in 2018 and 2019. Much of that could be due to the shift in direction from EOS-M to RF, and Canon's RF-S lineup being relatively new. This has a dramatic impact on BCN rankings since most of the top-selling cameras in Japan are APS-C cameras. Until Canon gets more lenses out for the RF-S system, and also perhaps leverages the huge third-party market for APS-C mirrorless lenses – Canon most likely has its work cut out to recapture the mirrorless market share.
But it should be noted that Canon doesn't take losing well, they seem to get highly motivated by it. I would expect Canon to rebound quickly this year.
The details for this year's awards are as follows.
Compact Camera category
- Canon (22.6% share)
- Kodak (20.7% share)
- Fujifilm (18.1% share)
DSLR Camera category
- Canon (77.1% share)
- Nikon (17.1% share)
- Ricoh (5.8% share)
Mirrorless Camera category
- Sony (34% share)
- Canon (28.3% share)
- OM Digital (12.5% share)
Interchangeable lens category
- Sigma (17% share)
- Tamron (15.4% share)
- Sony (15.2% share)
Source: BCN
Nikon just sadly seems lost these days. I say that as a long time Canon fanboy. Always liked having a strong competitor in Nikon. As long as they finished second 😉
At least the Z 8 seems to be doing well.
But of course these numbers and Sony at #1 show that Canon is d... no, I won't say it 😉
UI and service 🤢
I suspect a digic X powered M300 with a 15-45 kit lens would still sell very well in 2024. I’m very curious what Canon has in store for that type of form factor in the RF mount. The R8+28mm is very pocketable, but it is enormous compared to the M+22mm.
But canon has a much better portfolio of camera bodies. The AF with canon bodies has been exemplary, from what I’ve used.
That’s a gross oversimplification. But it’s been my experience from trying a smattering of stuff across both sides of the aisle.