If camera makers and lens makers were all put in the same bucket, Tamron would be the third largest player in the market now, due to another year of 20 percent growth in its lens division. Tamron sold about $450 million worth of lenses in 2021, a striking figure roughly half the amount of Canon's own photo division revenues. This makes Tamron a very close third, just behind Sony, as a competitor to Canon.
While it sells most lenses under its own brand, an increasing proportion of its products are sold under the brand names of camera makers. Panasonic and Sony, among other manufacturers, have relied on Tamron to produce lenses, often of Tamron's own design. The Tamron 35mm f/1.8 design in the picture above, for instance, was remarketed later as a Sony/Zeiss lens. These sorts of contracts now comprise about 40 percent of Tamron's lens sales, up from about 33 percent last year.
With Canon increasingly abandoning EF mount lens production, Tamron and Sigma continue to be go-to options for users of canon cameras.
Tamrons margins are also increasing, in good part because of the increased pricing it can command with its new mirrorless-first lens designs, which have proven incredibly popular on Sony E mount, and more recently on Fuji X mount.
In Tamron's year-end figures presentation, the firm indicated that one of the critical growth areas for it in the future will be “swift response to new formats.” Tamron has yet to make lenses for Canon or Nikon mirrorless mounts, although it added Fuji X mount to its lineup in 2021. The company set a target of doubling its mirrorless lens options, indicating roughly five new lenses would be released in 2022.
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