Fuel for the fire: Amazon DSLR Rankings...and no REAL 2012-2013 market data?

[Mt Spokane Photography]

post removed until I have time to try and reconcile the different way that Canon and Nikon do their accounting.

Here are the pertinent pages from their reports, it can be confusing when one reports in sales plus units while the other in sales plus percentages of units.

The numbers can be resolved, it takes more time than I have right now.


The first two charts are Canon, the Third is Nikon.

 

[dswtan]

This has nothing to do with sales, it's just the rankings of the search terms overall.

LOL! You just dismissed Google's entire business model -- which wholly relies on the correlation of search terms and ultimate sales.

 

[Woody]

jrista,
What is the point of this thread?

He hopes to find evidence to show that Canon is no longer the market leader. Whenever he whines about poor DR on Canon sensors, some folks will argue sensor quality has no correlation to market sales. I suppose Jrista just wants to prove them wrong, hence his interest in the combined market shares of Nikon and Sony vs that of Canon.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

This has nothing to do with sales, it's just the rankings of the search terms overall.

LOL! You just dismissed Google's entire business model -- which wholly relies on the correlation of search terms and ultimate sales.

Actually new models get the most searches as people want to learn about them. Google charges advertisers for each "Impression", but the product may or may not actually sell well. Advertisers are used to paying more for each potential buyer that their sales information reaches.

I search out new models and information about cameras that are mentioned here, be they Sony, Fuji, Pentax, Sigma, Nikon, Canon, and even MF models. However, my searches are not going to result in a sale. I look up information on $100,000 cars, but am not going to buy one, I couldn't pay for the insurance

 

[Woody]

I'd offer one point: That Canon's "Imaging" business is much larger than consumer cameras, and also much larger in the range of markets they serve than Nikon's. Canon does photography, video, cinematography, printing, and more (plus all the accessories for all those submarkets). It even includes projectors, display technology, as well as network video (surveillance?) That's their "Imaging" business. Nikon's imaging business is just digital photography (plus accessories).

See:
http://www.canon.com/ir/conference/pdf/conf2014q2e.pdf
http://www.canon.com/ir/results/2014/rslt2014q2e.pdf

From the report:
"Within the Imaging System Business Unit, although sales volume of interchangeable-lens digital cameras declined owing to the shrinking market in Japan and other markets... the advanced-amateur-model EOS 70D realized healthy growth, enabling Canon to maintain the top share in major markets such as Europe, the U.S. and Japan."

Breakdown of product sales under Imaging System in the report: cameras and lenses (64%), inkjet printers (27%) and others (9%).

 

[Maiaibing]

Nikon gives sales quantities but no percentage value. It does appear that their DSLR/Lens sales make up a very high percentage of their sales (~60%). I'd guess about 93% by dollar value.

Thousands of units sold:

DSLR 1,100
Lens 1,610
P&S 1,780

Seems to me that this must be Nikon's quarterly figures since Canon in their investor outlook for 2014 (4.th q 2013) predicted falling DSLR sales from 9 to 8 mill. units in 2014. Assuming that Nikon DSLR sales do not vary widely over the year (not sure if this is appropriate) that would put Nikon sales at something like 55% of Canon's sales - a significant gap.

It could also indicate that Nikon is not increasing its long term total DSLR market share (this is a speculative interpretation).

 

[Efka76]

Jrista, you can not make valid conclusions due to the following:

1) Data is not complete. You are analysing US Amazon sales only. This data is not sufficient even for analysing US marker as there are many more internet and standard sales channels in US.
2) In order to make valid conclusions about dominance in the global market you should include all Amazon shops (US, UK, FR, etc.), B&H, retail stores and many others. Practically it is impossible to gather exact data as you will definitely will not include all sales channels.
3) It would be more reliable to gather data from Financial statements or management reports, bank analyst reports on Canon, Nikon, Olympus, etc. However, here we encounter a problem that even segment reporting data is too aggregated. These companies are involved in many businesses (e.g. Sony, Canon, etc.) and do not provide in financial statements very detailed data about some particular business segment (in our case that would be specific camara data). Of course it would be very interesting for us to see what are Canon global sales of specific cameras in different markets, what is profitability of specific products (we would see that 1Dx, 5D MarkIII are the most profitable models... by the way, it is my assumption ). However, such data would be very interesting to competitors and everybody is trying to disclose required information according to various accounting standard requirements (US GAAP, IFRS) and aggregate data in such way in order not to disclose its strengths and real position in the market to competitors. The Bank analysts are obtaining more specific data during various press releases, conf call, etc. (however that data is not audited and nobody can place 100% reliance on it). For example, if you take market position (in percentages) from different companies (I am talking about their own assessments), add everything together I am almost sure that you get more than 100%

I am writing this as I was an Audit director for many years in BIG4 and know such things

 

[ULFULFSEN]

Also amazon is a mass market retailer and will be heavily skewed towards the low end of the market. Lots of t5i and T5, but are you going to. Uy a high end pro camera from amazon? i likely wouldn't.

of course i would and i have.

amazon just replaces a broken camera during warranty. easy and simple.
with brick and mortar retailers you often have to argue and they send them in.

at least here in europe.
we don´t have something big like B&H or Adorama.

 

[Ivan Muller]

if canon sales are indeed falling it will only be good news for us. Because then they might become more competitive either ito price, quality, specs, dare I mention sensor design? etc etc. But I fear that they are still no1 all over...so they will only 'improve' slowly and incrementally

 

[ajperk]

Well, if we've learned something from this thread I'd say it's simply the difficulty in finding good, granular data on DSLR and camera sales volume or the big players in the field. Thinking back to all the people I've met with DSLR or MILC cameras over the last few years, I think I've seen mostly Canon and Nikon, and maybe a bit more Canon than Nikon but not by a lot, and by far entry level bodies with kit lenses were the dominant set up encountered. Being of that age when all your friends start getting married, I have paid a lot of attention to the equipment of wedding photographers, and in those cases I think there was probably approximately a 3:1 ratio of Canon to Nikon equipment. Those are my unscientific two cents, anyway.

 

[fragilesi]

I don't have access to any search engine data

Yeah you do. We all do:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=canon%20camera%2C%20nikon%20camera&cmpt=q
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=canon%20used%2C%20nikon%20used&cmpt=q

I'm not sure what the point of this thread is beyond stirring up mud but we do have some access to search engine data at least. Just more fuel. Fantasy football for camera geeks. Take photos!

This tells me all I need to know ;D

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=dslr%2C%20canon%20dslr%2C%20nikon%20dslr%2C%20jrista&cmpt=q

 

[ULFULFSEN]

 

[Woody]

For Jrista:

2011 Market:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/30/us-canon-results-idUSTRE80T09Q20120130

Thom Hogan (bythom.com) translated Nikon's sale of 4.7 million interchangeable lens cameras as 31% market share. This means Canon's sale of 7.2 million interchangeable lens cameras has a market share of 47.5%.

2012 Market:
http://www.sansmirror.com/newsviews/why-cp-was-so-grim.html

Total number of interchangeable lens cameras sold = 20.2 million
Canon sold 8.21 million interchangeable lens cameras = 40.6%
Nikon sold 7 million interchangeable lens cameras = 34.7%

2013 Market:
http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/nikon-sees-corner-ahead.html

Nikon finished the year with 34% of the interchangeable lens camera market
Not clear how many interchangeable lens cameras were sold by Canon in 2013.

From:
http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/about_canon/newsroom?pageKeyCode=pressreldetail&docId=0901e02480891911

"Canon Inc., today announced that the company's EOS line of interchangeable-lens digital cameras (Digital SLR and compact-system cameras) have consistently maintained the No. 1 share worldwide in terms of volume within the interchangeable-lens digital camera market for the 10-year period from 2003 to 2012."

 

[DominoDude]

I don't have access to any search engine data

Yeah you do. We all do:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=canon%20camera%2C%20nikon%20camera&cmpt=q
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=canon%20used%2C%20nikon%20used&cmpt=q

I'm not sure what the point of this thread is beyond stirring up mud but we do have some access to search engine data at least. Just more fuel. Fantasy football for camera geeks. Take photos!

Thanks, I didn't know of those data on Google. And at that time of night (it was laaate) my brain wasn't up to do any digging for reliable info. So you all had to bare with my slightly less reliable reasoning about factors that could have an influence.

 

[Dylan777]

jrista,
What is the point of this thread?

He hopes to find evidence to show that Canon is no longer the market leader. Whenever he whines about poor DR on Canon sensors, some folks will argue sensor quality has no correlation to market sales. I suppose Jrista just wants to prove them wrong, hence his interest in the combined market shares of Nikon and Sony vs that of Canon.

Actually, just I want to know the simple facts. I don't care one way or the other, I'd just like to know. I'd also like it to be known that the "market share" argument is based on rather outdated data...but beyond that...if new data from 2014 showed that Canon was still the market leader, fine. At least it would be current information, though...not anecdotal information based on an Amazon site that updates hourly, or based on information three to four years old.

I rather read your low DR comments over this one.

I spent about $25K in camera gear through BH, adorama and Samys. Zero on Amazon.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

So, what percentage of Canon's "Imaging" business excludes the video, cinema, printing, etc., and is therefor more directly comparable to Nikon's? Or any other manufacturer of digital still photography cameras? What was the loss just for the digital camera submarket of Canon's imaging business? Was it a mere 13%? Or was it more? Does Canon specifically say DSLRs? Or do they simply say interchangable lens devices? Imaging covers quite a range of devices that use interchangable lenses.

Jrista, I am going to have to spend some time to answer your questions, the different way te reports are presented require analysis.

I've removed my post until I have more time.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

So, what percentage of Canon's "Imaging" business excludes the video, cinema, printing, etc., and is therefor more directly comparable to Nikon's? Or any other manufacturer of digital still photography cameras? What was the loss just for the digital camera submarket of Canon's imaging business? Was it a mere 13%? Or was it more? Does Canon specifically say DSLRs? Or do they simply say interchangable lens devices? Imaging covers quite a range of devices that use interchangable lenses.

Jrista, I am going to have to spend some time to answer your questions, the different way te reports are presented require analysis.

I've removed my post until I have more time.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with. It's sad in general how much business these companies are losing on the photography front. I understand the loss of P&S business...but 20-50% losses for interchangable lens cameras? Those are precipitous drops...

I replaced my original posts with the charts so you can take a shot at it. My numbers do not make sense as I confused units and sales dollars plus mixed Canon actual plus sales projections.

I should not post late at night.

We will drag out the real numbers, its pretty bad for both.

 

[Maiaibing]

This tells me all I need to know ;D
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=dslr%2C%20canon%20dslr%2C%20nikon%20dslr%2C%20jrista&cmpt=q

LOL! Try doing that with Canon 5D3 and Nikon D810...

 

[CanonOregon]

I think more importantly is who will survive? Even though Nikon is in a tougher spot with a heavy reliance on cameras than Canon or Sony, I think those three survive. Panasonic is broad-based as well. Fuji has other businesses as well. Pentax would seem to have a tough road ahead and may need a partner. That's the real question I'd be concerned with in buying into a system now. The Nikon-Sony alliance could be tricky at some point, who knows, but Sony builds sensors for so many brands maybe they're just happen selling sensors along with their own cameras.
Second, how important is imagining to the market? Oh sure, camera phones but serious imagining? Some would say they do serious imagining with their camera phones but...
And finally, with the death of the local camera store, who is out there to guide the purchaser today? They're buying those cheap kits with the 18-55mm and a 75-300mm and thinking they can be a wedding or wildlife photographer- I know I worked in a camera store and would have them coming in and asking, "So I want to be a wedding photographer, what camera and lenses should I buy?" Yeah, I'm going into Home Depot and telling them I want to be a home builder, what tools should I buy?
So, I'd be more concerned about the total health of a company, not who's selling the most dSLRs today.

 

[Loswr]

This tells me all I need to know ;D
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=dslr%2C%20canon%20dslr%2C%20nikon%20dslr%2C%20jrista&cmpt=q

LOL! Try doing that with Canon 5D3 and Nikon D810...

You're right, that is interesting. The announcement time peak of the 5DIII is far higher than that of the D810. The D810's peak is at around the interest level of the 5DIII at 'steady state' nearly two years after its announcement.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Canon%205d%20mark%20iii%2C%20Nikon%20d810&cmpt=q

Were you LOL-ing at the relative lack of interest in the D810 compared to the 5DIII? Or were you trying to make the opposite point, perhaps because you use the term "5D3" instead of the correct terminology ("5D Mark III").