Canon to withdraw from the low-priced compact digital camera

[Diko]

Most probable and IMO well expected move from Canon is to move out of cheap (under $200) cameras due to the ever increasing market share of the phone cameras.

According to digicame-info.com Fujifilm,Olympus, Panasonic, Casio are also considering that.

As a trend below is an estimate of DSLR and DSC market shrinking with huge 15% in just 5 years:

Picture source: image-sensors-world.blogspot.com

 

[neuroanatomist]

In 2013, interchangeable lens cameras accounted for 480B ¥, and fixed lens cameras accounted for 404B ¥. I don't know what fraction of P&S market constitutes 'cheap' cameras, but the bulk of the dSLR market are 'cheap' bodies, and I suspect the same is true for the fixed lens camera market.

Sure, the market is contracting. But fixed lens cameras accounted for ~46% of all camera revenues last year...somehow, I don't think vendors will abandon that market in the near future.

 

[Lightmaster]

i heard olympus, pana thinking about withdrawing.

but when others go there is less competition.. bigger market share and more profitable for the remaining.

 

[Sella174]

Easy solution: raise prices ... then you're not selling cheap cameras anymore. ;D

 

[Orangutan]

i heard olympus, pana thinking about withdrawing.

but when others go there is less competition.. bigger market share and more profitable for the remaining.

The conventional wisdom is that "the competition" isn't from other budget digicams, but from smartphones. Smartphone images are now close-enough to the quality of budget digicams that there's no point in buying/carrying a second gadget for people in that market. Digicams need to offer something of sufficient added value that consumers (I use that word intentionally) will be willing to spend the money, and also willing to carry the camera. (If they don't carry the camera, they won't buy a replacement when new models come out...or when they drop/lose it, whichever comes first)

 

[Sella174]

Digicams need to offer something of sufficient added value that consumers (I use that word intentionally) will be willing to spend the money, and also willing to carry the camera.

Consumers ... ah, there's the rub.

In my view, digital P&S cameras were a natural progression from film P&S cameras, with both having "consumers" (aka the general public at large) as target market. From this, cameras in 'phones and tablets are the further progression. This effectively means that consumer-orientated digital P&S cameras are a dead market. It's gone and finished.

The future of digital P&S cameras lie in niche markets. Manufacturers must make camera for those enthusiasts (not consumers) who want an actual camera for the simple fact that it can do something that their iPhone can't do. For example, sub-f/2 (fixed-lens) primes, BiF-trackable AF, complete and utter enviromental-sealing, and a nice design.

 

[Orangutan]

Digicams need to offer something of sufficient added value that consumers (I use that word intentionally) will be willing to spend the money, and also willing to carry the camera.

Consumers ... ah, there's the rub.

<snip>

The future of digital P&S cameras lie in niche markets. Manufacturers must make camera for those enthusiasts (not consumers) who want an actual camera for the simple fact that it can do something that their iPhone can't do. For example, sub-f/2 (fixed-lens) primes, BiF-trackable AF, complete and utter enviromental-sealing, and a nice design.

If consumers can be persuaded to buy and play Angry Birds, I bet they can be persuaded to buy and use P&S cameras.

P&S as niche will not be very profitable. I doubt there are enough enthusiasts who are willing to buy such a capable P&S at niche prices, but not willing to pay more for even-more-capable SLR or high-end mirrorless. .

 

[Sella174]

If consumers can be persuaded to buy and play Angry Birds, I bet they can be persuaded to buy and use P&S cameras.

I have a better idea ... DOOM II Deathmatch over WiFi on all Canon DSLR cameras! It'll be great for those boring press events.

 

[Lightmaster]

i heard olympus, pana thinking about withdrawing.

but when others go there is less competition.. bigger market share and more profitable for the remaining.

The conventional wisdom is that "the competition" isn't from other budget digicams, but from smartphones. Smartphone images are now close-enough to the quality of budget digicams that there's no point in buying/carrying a second gadget for people in that market. Digicams need to offer something of sufficient added value that consumers (I use that word intentionally) will be willing to spend the money, and also willing to carry the camera. (If they don't carry the camera, they won't buy a replacement when new models come out...or when they drop/lose it, whichever comes first)

less companys who make competing cameras.... less competition from them.

i have a nice smartphone but to be honest i still like a small pocketable camera.
when oly and pana doesn´t make these cameras anymore.... bigger chance i will buy a canon.

 

[Robert Welch]

The main reason smartphones are encroaching on the P&S camera market is the flexibility they have with the image after taking the photos. With a camera, you take the photo, and there is really little else you can do until you get the photo out of the camera and into a computer. With the smartphones, you take the photo and that simply begins what you can do with the image from there. The quality of the image is no longer important, past a certain point at least. It doesn't matter how good the compact cameras are, the smartphones will continue to grow in usage for photo taking in their place. For more serious photographers, the cheap P&S was never really for them to begin with.

 

[neuroanatomist]

The main reason smartphones are encroaching on the P&S camera market is the flexibility they have with the image after taking the photos. With a camera, you take the photo, and there is really little else you can do until you get the photo out of the camera and into a computer.

Little else? Obviously, you haven't seen the Canon PowerShot N Facebook Edition with the dedicated FB upload button.

:

 

[tntwit]

The quality of the image is no longer important, past a certain point at least.

Must be, because I have yet to be impressed by a cell phone camera despite the rant on the internet that they are just as good as expensive, high end DSLRs.

The super slow shutter speed and weak flash make them useless indoors for pictures of people unless you ask people to pose. Forget pictures of your kids.

No doubt the ease of being able to instantly publish has made the cell phone desirable.

Supposedly the cell phone makers are pushing harder to make better cameras. Time will tell.

I would've thought it would have made a logical business partnership for Canon or Nikon to pair with a cell phone company to handle the camera function. Seems like a no brainer. It would give the phone instant clout just like dropping a Cummins diesel into a Dodge truck did for them 25 years ago when no one was buying their trucks (and now Nissan is adding a Cummins to the Titan that has largely been ignored by the public). More importantly, it will keep the Canon/Nikon name in front of the public. Seems now names like Nokia are becoming the respected brands in cell phone photography.

Similarly, TomTom (and probably others) have added their GPS apps to the marketplace because no one wants a separate GPS anymore.

 

[dstppy]

Smart phones are taking over because people can't be bothered.

My wife is an iPhoneographer (which drives me up the wall) but if she's in the shot, she wants a high-end P&S or DSLR used because she KNOWS what they look like on the computer.

2 more years your toaster will probably have a camera in it.

Just so you know, I had to google that . . . just to be sure someone didn't have a kickstarter for that already.

 

[Hannes]

I would've thought it would have made a logical business partnership for Canon or Nikon to pair with a cell phone company to handle the camera function. Seems like a no brainer.

It would make a lot of sense for canon since they have the entire production assembly for it. It would be pretty easy to whack the small P&S sensor into a phone, just look at the latest sony phone which has a bigger than usual sensor.

 

[jebrady03]

I don't think the biggest problem is portability, sensor size, in-camera or in-phone effects, connectivity, etc. I think the biggest problem is "the value of an image". Most people are so inundated with dozens, hundreds, or even THOUSANDS of pictures a day that at most, a single image is in front of their faces for a fraction of a second. There's simply no time for the average person to appreciate the uniqueness, subtleties, and nuances of a particular photo - much less the artistic impact it makes (or, could in theory if one were to give it some time).

Sure, top-tier photography will still stand out, even on FB and Instagram, but "the masses" - who in the past may have purchased a dedicated point and shoot or even a low-end DSLR - have a hard time getting out of full-auto mode and capitalizing on the strengths of these cameras to make their images more appealing. Instead, they'd rather slap an ugly *** filter on top of it to garner the extra fraction of a second it takes from their friends to elicit a "like" before they move on to even more images from others who NEED likes in order to bolster their self-confidence.

 

[Don Haines]

Smart phones are taking over because people can't be bothered.

My wife is an iPhoneographer (which drives me up the wall) but if she's in the shot, she wants a high-end P&S or DSLR used because she KNOWS what they look like on the computer.

2 more years your toaster will probably have a camera in it.

Just so you know, I had to google that . . . just to be sure someone didn't have a kickstarter for that already.

What a great idea! A toaster with a camera! It could tell how well toasted the bread is!

 

[Robert Welch]

The main reason smartphones are encroaching on the P&S camera market is the flexibility they have with the image after taking the photos. With a camera, you take the photo, and there is really little else you can do until you get the photo out of the camera and into a computer.

Little else? Obviously, you haven't seen the Canon PowerShot N Facebook Edition with the dedicated FB upload button.

:

Yes, this is Canon's attempted answer to the problem, but is it enough just to have access to Facebook? People already have a phone, over 50% are smartphones from what I understand, and all those smartphones already have a camera in them. It's simply a question of "is the camera in the phone good enough?". As has been pointed out, the answer for many is yes. How many people were buying a cheap P&S for image quality anyway? Everyone knows, a good camera cost more money, so nobody was fooled into thinking they had some awesome camera when they buy the cheapest one Walmart had in stock. How much worse is the smartphone camera than that? Not enough to make a difference, apparently.

Canon could try to put more feature in the camera to make it more like using a smartphone, but at that point, why not just get a smartphone? Nokia seems to be one of the companies that is really working hard to get a better camera built into the phone, but one of the big issues is, can it still be used as a phone? That is the ultimate criteria for those who might be looking at a camera vs. just using the phone camera. The bottom line is, the best camera to use is the one you have with you, and everyone has their phone with them most of the time. So by default, it becomes the best camera.

 

[scottburgess]

As a trend below is an estimate of DSLR and DSC market shrinking with huge 15% in just 5 years:

All right, all right, everybody calm down! There's no fire here.

Sorry, Diko, but this is what happens when bizarre chart types are used to share data--it becomes very hard to interpret what is actually happening. The outer rings are the projected market, the inner rings are the current market. 37% of $9.1 billion is $3.367 billion. 22% of $17 billion is 3.74 billion, an increase of 11% instead of a drop of 15%. Likewise the units display growth from 329 million to 588 million. Considering that includes projected erosion of the small point-and-shoot market, the growth in SLRs should be larger in percentage terms.

Don't feel bad, it took me almost five minutes to figure this out. The dip***t who created this chart should be spanked IMO. The natural tendency is to compare the rings against each other, which is impossible without a hand calculator. Simple stacked bar graphs would have been much easier to compare visually.

I also would not place a lot of confidence in these projections as they sound overly optimistic. Consider the source: a semiconductor company. Something fishy in the fish market? Perhaps.

 

[dstppy]

What a great idea! A toaster with a camera! It could tell how well toasted the bread is!

No no no. That would make SENSE. Think Web Two-point-oh.

What the camera is for is to do facial recognition to:
1) identify the person and determine their likes (probably from scanning all the meta-data that your toaster has on you)
2) identify how satisfied you are with the results (and upload that meta-data to no place in particular that the consumer needs to know about)

Of course, it will work as well as when they (google and apple) transitioned from hardware/software based voice recognition to cloud-based crowd-adjusted results.

 

[wickidwombat]

The main reason smartphones are encroaching on the P&S camera market is the flexibility they have with the image after taking the photos. With a camera, you take the photo, and there is really little else you can do until you get the photo out of the camera and into a computer.

Little else? Obviously, you haven't seen the Canon PowerShot N Facebook Edition with the dedicated FB upload button.

:

I wonder if they will sell this in china since facebook is blocked by the great firewall of china...