LensVid Posts Camera Sales Breakdown for 2015

[Canon Rumors]

This week LensVid posted what is becoming their annual breakdown of what happened in the year of camera sales. Along with predictions for the coming year and a very handy infographic and video.</p>
<p>Along with the information of what actually transpired in 2015, they also review their predictions for last year, and they did pretty well.</p>
<p>Their predictions for 2016?</p>
<ul>
<li><em>2016 will be a better year for the photography market. With that said, we still expect the total number of cameras sold in 2016 to be below 30 million – or around 15% decrease compared to 2015.</em></li>
<li><em>On the other hand, we expect more DSLR sales in 2016 – with a one digit increase, and more or less the same increase in mirrorless cameras.</em></li>
<li><em>We are predicting that compact cameras will drop below 20 million and may even get close to 15 million (compared to 22 million in 2015).</em></li>
<li><em>Finally, Looking a bit ahead in the next 2 years DSLRs and mirrorless cameras will have a bigger market share than compact cameras, which we are predicting – will become a niche market before the end of this decade.</em></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://lensvid.com/gear/lensvid-exclusive-what-happened-to-the-photography-industry-in-2015/" target="_blank">Read the full article and see the video</a></p>
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[old-pr-pix]

LensVid's predictions vary some from that of CIPA. Both assume the market will continue to shrink - led by double digit P&S declines. However, CIPA also forecasts DSLR shipments will fall just over 5% while LensVid expects DSLR shipments to increase slightly. Not mentioned by LensVid are the shipments of interchangeable lenses which CIPA predicts will decline by nearly 8%. Worldwide the number of lenses shipped still remains well below 2 per body. The enthusiasts and pros who sport large lens collections are clearly far outnumbered by the average consumers who buy the one lens or two lens kit and nothing further. Higher quality wide range zooms also tend to reduce the number of individual lenses produced.

For 2015 DSLR shipments outnumbered non-reflex (mostly mirrorless cameras) by a well reported 3 to 1 margin. Yet, the Japanese find the mirrorless far more popular than elsewhere in the world. In Japan mirrorless accounts for roughly 40% of all ILC while in the US it is still only 17%. Mirrorless does seem to be more stable shipment-wise than DSLR's; but the predictions of the demise of DSLR's are not occurring at anything close to the rates initially predicted by some.

 

[kphoto99]

Worldwide the number of lenses shipped still remains well below 2 per body. The enthusiasts and pros who sport large lens collections are clearly far outnumbered by the average consumers who buy the one lens or two lens kit and nothing further. Higher quality wide range zooms also tend to reduce the number of individual lenses produced.

Pros have many lenses but they also have more then one body, this reduces the lens/body ratio.

 

[old-pr-pix]

Worldwide the number of lenses shipped still remains well below 2 per body. The enthusiasts and pros who sport large lens collections are clearly far outnumbered by the average consumers who buy the one lens or two lens kit and nothing further. Higher quality wide range zooms also tend to reduce the number of individual lenses produced.

Pros have many lenses but they also have more then one body, this reduces the lens/body ratio.

Good point, but I still expect many enthusiasts & pros run above the 1.6 average across the board. Currently I have three ILC bodies and 13 lenses - 4.3 average per body (all digital, not counting the older FD series bodies/lenses). I suppose we could do a poll to see how CR readers average out. I'm certainly not suggesting I'm representative.