Sony Overtakes #2 Position in U.S. Full-Frame Interchangeable Lens Camera Market

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Sony might have cherry-picked the data, but I also find it interesting that people are discrediting Sony's claims because they are selling higher priced cameras (which has increased their $$ sales volume).

But if I was Nikon or Canon, that would be the most disconcerting thing. Nikon and Canon might still be able to rely on their lower priced cameras, which are often purchased by people as their first step into a better camera system than their phone. But it seems more experienced photographers, when looking to upgrade or add another body, are giving serious consideration to Sony. In an industry where the manufacturers also take pride in being the best (as well as the biggest), hopefully we'll start seeing more innovation from both Canon and Nikon as they fight to retain market share.

I'm sure they wished they started this sooner, but to Canon's credit, they've put a lot of effort into combating this with new EF-S primes and mirrorless offerings. But Nikon seem to be lacking in both.

Actually, during January-February, Sony prices were relatively low with the big sale. So, they probably sold large numbers of cameras to get that dollar figure up.

Nikon is indeed struggling, their FF bodies seem to be selling poorly, at a large sporting event, there is a occasional Nikon shooter, but Canon numbers swamp them. Whats happening here? Nikon is not a bad brand, but they do seem to be less prevalent.

Sony does deserve credit for pushing mirrorless cameras, and moving into mainstream camera production, using industry standard memory cards. I well remember them first trying to push out cameras with floppy disk drives that were unreliable and of such small capacity that image files were compressed to being almost garbage. Then, they decided to replace floppys with another Sony invention - memory sticks, and, once again were panned by mainstream photographers who wanted SD or CF memory which cost far less and were industry standards.

Its too bad that we do not have industry standard batteries. Li-on batteries are dangerous though, so no camera company wants the liability involved with approved batteries made by 100 suppliers. They still get this from counterfeiters and a few third party manufacturers, but the sheer number of different camera batteries holds down the third party suppliers to just a few. For LP-E6 batteries used by many Canon DSLR's, its a exception, lots of people hawking them.

 

[Tugela]

It should not be too surprising considering that cameras shipments to the Americas show DSLR declining by ~10% during this period, but MILCs increasing by ~100%

100% of nothing is nothing.

it's also shipments and the "value" that CIPA gets is offered by the individual companies, there's no real standard there. it's most likely some FOB value, however, whatever, that FOB value is set by the distributing company is entirely arbitrary. canon's FOB price that we saw in some documents is around 50% of retail. if Sony or olympus / panasonic have a different FOB %, then the results are skewed.

there's only two "real" datapoints one is units, the other is retail sales numbers over a long period of time to remove the bursty nature of flash sales.

As an example Canon started their spring sales this month. Obviously it will effect sales for them when it's on, versus when it's off. Nikon will most likely follow suit.

in actual "REAL" quantitative numbers, only 38,470 mirrorless got shipped into NA for the first two months of the year - making that look, real small as mirrorless usually does, and still only 27% share of the ILC market in the americas - and that's including the fact that there was a fair amount of notable mirrorless releases in the first two months of the year.

Panasonic, Olympus had releases that will spike shipments for the first two months of the year as well as the perceived "value" since both units are very expensive over their last year's prior units.

That 27% market share is a big increase on what it was in the Americas before however, where MILCs traditionally did not do well. That is now apparently changing.

And in Asia MILCs have around 44% of the market share. Asia accounts for about 54% of ILC sales, A number that increased by about 3-4% compared to the previous year. Relative growth of MILCs over DSLRs in the first two months of the year is 40 points in Asia, 110 points in the Americas, 40 points in Europe and just over 50 points in Japan.

Those are not insignificant numbers, and even if subsequent growth are smaller numbers than that, those stats should be of real concern to companies invested in the DSLR concept since it shows trends that are not very favorable to them. MILCs are growing significantly across the board, geographical areas where MILCs are strong are growing ILC sales the fastest, and the traditional reluctance to buy MILCs in the Americas is fading. DSLR shipments themselves dropped between 3-8 points, depending on geographical area, while MILC shipments increased between 38-100 points, depending on geographical area.

It is hard to see how a reasonable person could argue that those are good numbers for DSLRs. They are not.

 

[Tugela]

Sony might have cherry-picked the data, but I also find it interesting that people are discrediting Sony's claims because they are selling higher priced cameras (which has increased their $$ sales volume).

But if I was Nikon or Canon, that would be the most disconcerting thing. Nikon and Canon might still be able to rely on their lower priced cameras, which are often purchased by people as their first step into a better camera system than their phone. But it seems more experienced photographers, when looking to upgrade or add another body, are giving serious consideration to Sony. In an industry where the manufacturers also take pride in being the best (as well as the biggest), hopefully we'll start seeing more innovation from both Canon and Nikon as they fight to retain market share.

I'm sure they wished they started this sooner, but to Canon's credit, they've put a lot of effort into combating this with new EF-S primes and mirrorless offerings. But Nikon seem to be lacking in both.

Actually, during January-February, Sony prices were relatively low with the big sale. So, they probably sold large numbers of cameras to get that dollar figure up.

Nikon is indeed struggling, their FF bodies seem to be selling poorly, at a large sporting event, there is a occasional Nikon shooter, but Canon numbers swamp them. Whats happening here? Nikon is not a bad brand, but they do seem to be less prevalent.

Sony does deserve credit for pushing mirrorless cameras, and moving into mainstream camera production, using industry standard memory cards. I well remember them first trying to push out cameras with floppy disk drives that were unreliable and of such small capacity that image files were compressed to being almost garbage. Then, they decided to replace floppys with another Sony invention - memory sticks, and, once again were panned by mainstream photographers who wanted SD or CF memory which cost far less and were industry standards.

Its too bad that we do not have industry standard batteries. Li-on batteries are dangerous though, so no camera company wants the liability involved with approved batteries made by 100 suppliers. They still get this from counterfeiters and a few third party manufacturers, but the sheer number of different camera batteries holds down the third party suppliers to just a few. For LP-E6 batteries used by many Canon DSLR's, its a exception, lots of people hawking them.

MILC revenue did not grow as much as units shipped (which reflects the discounts you spoke about), but they still grew significantly, and in some cases grew a lot. In the Americas for example, revenue was up 90 points. DSLR revenue in the same area was up only 2 points (that indicates a buying shift taking place there btw). That is a big difference. The difference is not as extreme elsewhere, but in all areas other than Europe MILC revenue increased at a faster rate than DSLR revenue.

 

[Hflm]

It should not be too surprising considering that cameras shipments to the Americas show DSLR declining by ~10% during this period, but MILCs increasing by ~100%

100% of nothing is nothing.

it's also shipments and the "value" that CIPA gets is offered by the individual companies, there's no real standard there. it's most likely some FOB value, however, whatever, that FOB value is set by the distributing company is entirely arbitrary. canon's FOB price that we saw in some documents is around 50% of retail. if Sony or olympus / panasonic have a different FOB %, then the results are skewed.

there's only two "real" datapoints one is units, the other is retail sales numbers over a long period of time to remove the bursty nature of flash sales.

As an example Canon started their spring sales this month. Obviously it will effect sales for them when it's on, versus when it's off. Nikon will most likely follow suit.

in actual "REAL" quantitative numbers, only 38,470 mirrorless got shipped into NA for the first two months of the year - making that look, real small as mirrorless usually does, and still only 27% share of the ILC market in the americas - and that's including the fact that there was a fair amount of notable mirrorless releases in the first two months of the year.

Panasonic, Olympus had releases that will spike shipments for the first two months of the year as well as the perceived "value" since both units are very expensive over their last year's prior units.

That 27% market share is a big increase on what it was in the Americas before however, where MILCs traditionally did not do well. That is now apparently changing.

And in Asia MILCs have around 44% of the market share. Asia accounts for about 54% of ILC sales, A number that increased by about 3-4% compared to the previous year. Relative growth of MILCs over DSLRs in the first two months of the year is 40 points in Asia, 110 points in the Americas, 40 points in Europe and just over 50 points in Japan.

Those are not insignificant numbers, and even if subsequent growth are smaller numbers than that, those stats should be of real concern to companies invested in the DSLR concept since it shows trends that are not very favorable to them. MILCs are growing significantly across the board, geographical areas where MILCs are strong are growing ILC sales the fastest, and the traditional reluctance to buy MILCs in the Americas is fading. DSLR shipments themselves dropped between 3-8 points, depending on geographical area, while MILC shipments increased between 38-100 points, depending on geographical area.

It is hard to see how a reasonable person could argue that those are good numbers for DSLRs. They are not.

Again, you are quoting 27% based on a local extremum (if true) and use this as a basis for general remarks.
In the first two months mirrorless seemed to generally grew stronger than DSLR sales according to the stats I read (see link below). However the data shows, too, that mirrorless unit sales are basically flat, with a slight upturn recently. Vendours try to push into higher average unit value products resulting in the observed growth in $. This is different from unit sales and market share.
In Japan, for example, you had Sony loosing share in mirrorless with Canon overtaking Sony to become No. 2 (http://www.mirrorlessrumors.com/2016-companies-market-shares-japan/). There is strong fluctuation year to year so taking this marketing statement as a general trend is dangerous.
Global data is shown here: http://promuser.com/markets/2016/global-digital-camera-market-report-jan-2016.
MILCs had 17% share globally in 2015, 18% in 2016 and will have likely 19-20% after this year, maybe a bit higher.

 

[rrcphoto]

That 27% market share is a big increase on what it was in the Americas before however, where MILCs traditionally did not do well. That is now apparently changing.

not really. new products always spike sales. olympus and panasonic had to ship out in mid December / January and also feb new products. Caonon will be mass shipping in March both mirrorless and DSLR's.

then the shipments will go back to normal for a while, until Nikon mass ships the D7500, and so on.

a new month slice is meaningless because it can go up and down based entirely on mass shipments.

there was a month I believe when canon released the M into NA that Mirrorless jumped to 60% marketshare over a two month period. was that a trend?

 

[Woody]

a new month slice is meaningless because it can go up and down based entirely on mass shipments.

there was a month I believe when canon released the M into NA that Mirrorless jumped to 60% marketshare over a two month period. was that a trend?

To add from http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/sony-throws-some-smack.html

"... the metric for the press release's claim is dollars, not units. The implication is that Sony didn't reach #2 in unit volume in the US. In other words, Sony may have sold fewer cameras, but they were more expensive is a logical conclusion you can make.

... the time period associated with the claim is very brief: January and February 2017 (versus same period last year). Generally the start of the year is a slow sales period. Plus it's just one market that is cited, the US. The period in question comes immediately after NikonUSA's big full frame promotions in November and December 2016 had ended... NikonUSA did virtually nothing in those two months to promote camera sales, while Sony was aggressively doing so. And we'd also need to go back and look at January/February 2016 and see what was happening in the sales channels during that time to make full sense of Sony's claims, since they're using data from those months, as well.

...sales dollars are generally not a great statistic to look at as predictive. The reasons that all of us analysts look mostly at unit volume is that it is more predictive of long-term success... Unit volume over time also tells us about trajectories, and allows us to be more accurately predictive of future volume...

I'm also reminded of the 2007-2008 period, where Nikon wrested the full frame unit volume crown from Canon briefly. That was celebrated by Nikon (mostly in Japan), as it should be, but celebrations have this hangover problem. If you get too caught up in small victories, you might miss out on the big one. Canon certainly fought hard and got their market share back. So when Sony throws smack like this, I'm pretty sure that it fully caught both Canon's and Nikon's attention.

Expect a reaction. It might not happen quickly, but you don't make statements like the one Sony did without getting a reaction from the rest of the market."

Thom Hogan's last 2 paragraphs are referring to the following:

Interchangeable lens camera market shares for Canon & Nikon over the years:

Canon - 47% (2006), 42% (2007), 38% (2008), 44.5% (2010), 40.6% (2012), 43.3% (2014), 49% (2016)

Nikon - 33% (2006), 40% (2007), 37% (2008), 29.8% (2010), 34.7% (2012), 32.1% (2014), 28% (2016)

Look at the stats during the 2007-2008 period and witness what happens after that.

He believes Sony is going to experience the same kind of short term euphoria. And I concur.

 

[Mikehit]

Except of course that their next models are likely going to start hitting the market soon. No doubt you believe that the release of newer more sophisticated cameras will cause sales to crater.

Problem is, people who may have thought of buying the new camera have now bought one in the sales and promotions they have just had. So where are those sales going to come from to maintain their exalted #2 position?

 

[Mikehit]

Tugela and Hillsilly - you have some decent points about rising mirrorless sales but I see nothing that would cause Canon any significant concern. Yes, Sony took a huge leap forward with the A7 series, especially in its ability to use an adapter to take virtually any other lens (even though that has had far less impact on the market than people were predicting when it was first released), but Canon is very much up there. No, they are not storming the barricades but they are making evolutionary rather than evolutionary developments.
I reckon Canon's progress is pretty much in line with the pace of change in market attitudes to mirrorless cameras, whereas Sony have tried to force the pace and create the market, but then given Sony's position before their MILCs took off they had almost no other option. They are different approaches but equally valid, and overall I would say Canon is in the stronger position because the core product for the entire stills market remains DSLR which gives Canon a massive revenue stream and financial cushion.

 

[neuroanatomist]

Some people apparently believe that two months equals a trend. I suppose those same people would look back at Aug-Dec of last year (5 months of data!), where P&S units rose steadily and in Dec 2016 surpassed the Dec 2015 level, and conclude that P&S sales have recovered and are now a growth market.

Two months of higher revenues from a very small segment of the market in one country, vs. 14 years of global leadership for unit sales in the entire category. Yep, Canon is doomed. :

 

[FramerMCB]

Thanks for the dislikes and the free speech...

This is a photography forum - and private to boot (meaning the site administrator has full power to remove us or delete our posts = not 'free'). If you wish/want to make politically charged statements (of any kind/persuasion) this is not that place.

However, if you have questions, thoughts, prognostications, observations, complaints, what have you, on photography, photographic equipment, photo... etc. Please, as long as the verbiage is civil, post away.

So, from the basic premise of this particular forum (i.e. a Canon Rumors site) you are 'free' to post on anything relevant to the site, and/or a particular thread. Or start a thread about a related topic if you don't-see/can't-find a particular topic.

Shalom.
Have a fine weekend too!

 

[Tugela]

http://www.nikon.com/about/ir/ir_library/result/pdf/2017/17_all_e.pdf

Now we know why Nikon dropped behind Sony - their ILC unit sales for the third quarter of the financial year (Q1 of 2017) were ~25% down over the same period in the previous financial year.

It had nothing to do with Sony sales, and everything to do with declining Nikon sales.

It does not look very good for Nikon IMO.

 

[romanr74]

It had nothing to do with Sony sales, and everything to do with declining Nikon sales.

How do you know it is not the other way around?

 

[AvTvM]

It had nothing to do with Sony sales, and everything to do with declining Nikon sales.
It does not look very good for Nikon IMO.

It is both.
Good Sony sales ... mirrorless! 8)
Poor Nikon sales ... mirrorslappers

Nikon Facts: http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/nikons-year-financial-resul.html

2017 [2016/04/01 - 2017/03/31]

Which brings us to the ugly numbers for the Imaging group:
Net sales down 26% from 520b yen to 383b yen
Operating income down 39% from 45.7b yen to 27.7b yen
ILC cameras down 23% from 4.04m units to 3.1m units
ILC market share dropped from 31% to 26%
Lens sales down 22% from 5.9m units to 4.62m units
Lens market share dropped from 28% to 24%
Compact camera sales down 61% from 6.23m units to 3.19m
Compact camera market share down from 30% to 25%

2018 FC

Nikon Forecast:
Net sales down 10% from 383b yen to 345b yen
Operating income down 1% from 27.7b yen to 27b yen
ILC cameras down 19% from 3.1m units to 2.5m units
ILC market share drops from 26% to 23%
Lens sales down 19% from 4.6m units to 3.7m units
Lens market share drops from 24% to 21%
Compact camera sales down 18% from 3.19m units to 2.3m units
Compact camera market share drops from 25% to 22%

 

[AvTvM]

My take on thing: Basically, Sony and Fuji [and Oly on the low end] are eating Nikon's lunch. Canon is hangin' in ... not least thanks to having EOS M mirrorless lineup, not only mirrorslappers.

I like, what I see.

 

[AvTvM]

Could not find detailed unit sales numbers for Sony.

What I could find was https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/fr/16q4_supplement.pdf - page #6

Sony Digital Cameras Unit Sales [TOTAL = Compact Cameras + ILCs]
2015 FY: 6.1 Mio
2016 FY: 4.2 Mio
1017 FC: 3.8 Mio