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BCN has released its awards for the year 2024. They call the awards “2025” even though the data is from January 1st, 2024 through December 31st, 2024. Don't ask me why – I don't run the company.
As you may not be aware, BCN collects sales data from around 60% of all retailers in Japan, so it's a very accurate look at the Japanese market. The Japanese spend more per capita on camera equipment than anyone else, so it's important for us to report on. Also, what happens in Japan usually trends outward into Asia and other regions.
Also, it's a matter of pride for Japanese companies to have high sales rankings in Japan. Canon, for instance, takes a very dim view of not finishing #1.
I find the rankings a bit of a surprise overall, especially for mirrorless – for starters, Canon did not release any cameras until the R5 Mark II, and no camera under $4200 or 1 million yen was sure to stumble sales this year. Canon being in #2 for mirrorless doesn't surprise me; what does is Nikon jumping for the first time in over 10 years to #3 in mirrorless sales. Well done, Nikon.
Olympus has been steadily losing market share every year, so it was a matter of time until it slipped out of the top 3. This was the year.
Canon had 26% of the market, but Sony held the dominant amount of sales with nearly 10% more, at 35.8%. Much of that is because Sony released a less expensive APS-C model earlier in the year, which easily helped Sony keep the #1 position in 2024. The ZV-E10 II has no competition from Canon, but I suspect Canon will rectify that situation this year. I hope they do it with both an APS-C and a full-frame model similar to Sony.
For DSLRs – there wasn't much of a surprise there; there are so few being sold in Japan that it is next to meaningless these days. From January through November, only 28,902 DSLRs were shipped to Japan. But since I like pretty graphs, we see that Canon continues to overwhelm everyone in terms of what is left of the DSLR market in Japan.
Overall, they slipped from 77.1% down to 69.4%, but I doubt that anyone in Japan is losing sleep over it. Interestingly, this was Ricoh's best year in terms of market share, but in terms of absolute units shipped and sold, probably not.
Canon also ranks out of the top 3 for the second year in a row in the interchangeable lens category, but to be fair, the top 3 vendors are only about 49.3% of the entire market. Tamron and Sigma switched positions from last year, and Sony held the #3 position as they did the year prior.
By the Numbers from BCN Awards 2025
Here's the raw data. The prior year's percentages are shown in parentheses.
Digital Cameras (integrated lens)
- Canon 23.4% (22.6%)
- Kodak 21.2% (20.7%)
- Fujifilm 15.8% (18.1%)
Digital Cameras (SLR)
- Canon 69.4% (77.1%)
- Nikon 20.9% (17.1%)
- Ricoh 9.7% (5.8%)
Digital Cameras (Mirrorless)
- Sony 35.8% (34%)
- Canon 26% (28.3%)
- Nikon 14.5% (Unknown)
Interchangeable Lenses
- Tamron 17.5% (15.4%)
- Sigma 16.8% (17%)
- Sony 15% (15.2%)
Digital Video Cameras
- DJI 48.1% (Unknown)
- Panasonic 23.8% (36.4%)
- Sony 23.4% (38.7%)
Action Cameras
- GoPro 34.3% (53.7%)
- DJI 32.1% (15.9%)
- Shenzhen Arashi Vision 26.9% (18.1%)
Source: BCN
I mean, you could read the second paragraph... too hard? or did you just look at the title and lose your mind? Japanese camera companies .. japanese market .. why wouldn't it be important?
their mirrorless offerings have always been pretty top notch - i was honestly puzzled that their shift to mirrorless hit so many roadblocks when Canon's did not.
Not to bring up old wounds, but it is amazing what Canon was able to accomplish with the M system. I need to go play with an R50 and see if I think it replaces my M6 II but at least in Japan, it does not look like the R50/100/etc captured the market like the M system had.
People from Japan visit the site. 🙄
I ran into yet another working photographer this past weekend who, in addition to a basket-full of R gear, had an M6MkII stashed into the corner of her roller-bag. Why, I asked? She said she liked shooting with it (and liked the results, too).
And in other M-related news...yesterday I ordered one of these:
...I did not know until yesterday that the M200 has the ability to output clean HDMI--hopefully with the aid of the above video capture device and high-quality microphone, I'll have another high-quality webcam rig...because when Canon was clearing out their M200 inventory, I picked up a couple of M200 kits as extras. At that time, I had no idea that the M200 featured the clean HDMI output.
The really-small and light M200 as a webcam. Who would've thunk it?!
I haven't seen CR's data, but I remember on canonnews, after the USA, Japan was the next most active country.
I have mentioned this general theme a lot when posting BCN, or the Japanese store rankings, while not global indicative, it's VERY important and a matter of pride to Nikon, Canon and Sony, et all. How they appear and are on the domestic market is significantly important to them
Also trends that happen in Asia, atypically flow out of Japan. Mirrorless overall was first adopted in Japan and then slowly and steadily moved out to Asia, and then took off in the rest of the world.
Trends can matter, and what the domestic market is buying also matters to these companies.
also:
"Japan only accounts for (497,518/5,202,986) about 10% of mirrorless camera unit sales. (CIPA, Jan-Nov 2024)"
yes, but they do that with 1.5% of the world's population.
the M200 yes, can do clean HDMI out - I used the M6II has a webcam - it was very good. I'm not sure how good the M200 will be because it does not have DPAF, if you are fixed focus and do not move a lot (or F/8 and be there), it should be fine. The M6 II was fantastic because it had eye AF combined with DPAF, so no matter where I was in the frame, my eyes were focused in the webcam stream. an APS-C sensor for a webcam is a million miles better.
Make sure you get the DC coupler, and also a cage (the cage will sink more heat away from the camera body - necessary with the smaller M200). Those cheap 1080p capture USB dongles also work just fine.
M200's etc are VERY expensive over here in Asia. I was griping to Craig that I can almost get a sony a7 cheaper than a canon eos-m camera.
why canon hasn't continued on the path of EOS-M in terms fo size and lifestyle photography is simply bonkers to me. the cameras are still quite hard to find over here.
it won't. you need to go full R7. for the size, Canon shoved in a significant amount of power into the M6 Mark II.