Canon mirrorless market lead. What went wrong for Panasonic and Sony?

[Andrew Reid]

For ages they had the mirrorless market to themselves.

Now Canon DSLRs are finally dead, the mirrorless market has a new leader

https://www.eoshd.com/news/how-panasonic-and-sony-let-canon-steal-the-mirrorless-camera-lead/

Canon!

I take a look at how this happened.

[MrSMW]

Branding/image.

Canon = cameras. Maybe printers and back in the day, photocopiers.

Panasonic & Sony = electronics.

Tough to get past that though Sony have helped themselves with their marketing and YouTube etc.

Panasonic... Well Panasonic or Lumix as we should call them, haven't really played that ball very well.

Fuji came (back) on the scene in 2011 and have been gaining popularity in their niche ever since.

Nikon for a while were on the ropes but with the Z9, then Z8 and now Zf, have hits on their hands. If you can manage to buy any of their products...

Olympus has fallen.

Pentax. 64 million years BC.

[Davide DB]

This seems to me to be a very lucid analysis.

I imagine Lumix executives reading this article secretly in the restroom.

 

[kye]

Canon are also one of the few that don't use Sony sensors.

The colour science of the other brands has been gradually improving, but Canon had it right from the start, in addition to their lenses which was a huge advantage of course.

[Andrew Reid]

Looking back it seems odd to me that Canon could establish two new systems Cinema EOS and EOS R, with the first camera in these lines being quite mundane, the 8bit C300 and the 5D Mark IV in mirrorless form, EOS R.

But it actually makes perfect sense when you think about it in terms of lenses.

C300 appealed to all those pros using EF lenses on their DSLRs.

And EOS R appealed to all those enthusiasts and semi-pros using EF lenses on their DSLRs.

When you have such a large established base of users, it's very hard to naff it up isn't it!

[newfoundmass]

Canon was always going to have an advantage because of their legacy lenses and near native performance on their RF cameras. Plus the name is just massive.

 

I think though that camera sales are only part of the picture. Are those people buying new lenses, or are they using their legacy lenses on the new bodies?

 

Also, what is the regional break down? I see A LOT Sony cameras these days, especially professionally. Most social media and web content teams use them for photo and video, from local companies to national companies (my friends working for WWE, All Elite Wrestling, and the UFC all shoot on Sony, for example.) The social media teams for most major venues in my neck of the woods, like TD Garden in Boston, also are using mostly Sony. But I'm also located in the Northeast United States/New England, so it might be different in other parts of the world or even other parts of the country. I also want to, but cannot for certain, say that Sony has the edge here for wedding shooters, though Canon has a heavy presence there too, especially amongst older professionals.

[sanveer]

Are polls still there? 

Maybe this topic requires a poll? With suggestions for the options, before the polls are opened.

Mine would be 'too slow to adopt PDAF', and 'abandoning small cameras like the GM/GX lineup'. 

Their supply chaim and marketing are also disappointing. 

[sanveer]

https://petapixel.com/2023/09/05/canon-has-nearly-50-of-camara-market-share-nearly-double-sony/

 

"As reported by Digital Camera Info and Digital Camera World, an annual Inspection World Share data report from Nikkei Shimbun — a Japanese business publication — shows that Canon, far and away, dominates the camera market with 46.5% of all units sold in 2023. The data, provided by Techno System Research, found that Canon sold over 3.348 million camera units in the same period that Sony sold around 1.879 million units. The report does not make a distinction between mirrorless cameras and DSLRs.

Nikon holds 11.7% of the market in a distant third, with Fujifilm and Panasonic following with 5.8% and 4.2% market share each. These top five companies account for 94.3% of the entire camera digital camera market share.

Comparing this with a 2022 sales report published by Digital Camera Life, it’s likely that Canon continues to rely heavily on its DSLR sales, at least in terms of volume. Canon’s mirrorless market share is still higher than Sony’s, but the race is much closer: 1.54 million units versus 1.25 million units.

Further, Sony is actually ahead of Canon when it comes to the value of those sold cameras. Canon’s higher number of camera bodies sold equated to 506.7 billion yen, while Sony sold fewer units for a sales value of 565 billion yen. Canon seems to be excelling when it comes to selling more affordable cameras, while the opposite is true for Sony.

All of this said, the breakdown of the market share leaders isn’t that different than in previous years, as Canon’s lead has only increased by 0.7%. Sony’s fell by a scant 0.9%. Nikon’s rose by 0.4%. There is not a lot of movement from any company on the top five list."

[kye]

9 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

Also, what is the regional break down? I see A LOT Sony cameras these days, especially professionally. Most social media and web content teams use them for photo and video, from local companies to national companies (my friends working for WWE, All Elite Wrestling, and the UFC all shoot on Sony, for example.) The social media teams for most major venues in my neck of the woods, like TD Garden in Boston, also are using mostly Sony. But I'm also located in the Northeast United States/New England, so it might be different in other parts of the world or even other parts of the country. I also want to, but cannot for certain, say that Sony has the edge here for wedding shooters, though Canon has a heavy presence there too, especially amongst older professionals.

The domestic segment might be the part of the picture you're missing...  I work corporate and the people who wear business attire to the office and are "into photography" tend to buy "the best" like the 5D and 24-70 F2.8.  
When I was filming my kids sports games the parents either used their phones or had enormous DSLRs like 5D or D800.
When I used to go to photography meetups maybe 10-15 years ago about two thirds had pocket cameras and one third had 5D / D800 level cameras.  One woman whose husband had a fancy job was a stay-at-home mum and had a 1DX and all three of the F2.8 zooms, but she had a longer lens too which was seriously long and looked ridiculous TBH.  Looking at the lenses now I think it might not have been the 100-400, but might have been the 200-400mm F4.  It was so long it made the 1DX look small.

Obviously a low percentage of normal people are buying Canon DSLR / MILCs, but there are so many more affluent amateurs than there are professionals, it would be easy for the consumers to dominate the sales figures.  They're also a hidden segment - unless you go to kids sports carnivals then you'd never know they existed.

You could say that this market segment is driven by reputation, but let's be honest, for stills Canon cameras are absolutely spectacular.

[ND64]

Nikon started at 2018 and now has more 400mm lens than Sony has 40mm. Glass business is hard, and Canon/Nikon are basically optics company. Canon didn't start the full frame mirrorless transition with a bold sensor message, it started with a bold glass message: 28-70mm f/2.

[Robert Collins]

I doubt Sony is put out much by these numbers. Sony has never been that much of a 'camera' or 'lens' manufacturer - the 'camera business' is just a show case for their sensors. And in the sensor business they totally dominate (do Canon even use their own sensors anymore?)

Of course Sony's really big market is smartphone image sensors. There was a time that a smartphone had one image sensor - my latest phone (Xiaomi) has '5' (all Sony) and including a 1 inch sensor.

So I would reckon Sony are pretty ok with Canon dominating what is essentially a declining niche mirrorless camera market, Sony have essentially capture the fastest 'growth' area of the photo industry...

[ntblowz]

30 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

I doubt Sony is put out much by these numbers. Sony has never been that much of a 'camera' or 'lens' manufacturer - the 'camera business' is just a show case for their sensors. And in the sensor business they totally dominate (do Canon even use their own sensors anymore?)

Of course Sony's really big market is smartphone image sensors. There was a time that a smartphone had one image sensor - my latest phone (Xiaomi) has '5' (all Sony) and including a 1 inch sensor.

So I would reckon Sony are pretty ok with Canon dominating what is essentially a declining niche mirrorless camera market, Sony have essentially capture the fastest 'growth' area of the photo industry...

Well all the Canon Apsc and FF is using Canon sensor from the beginning, only DC uses Sony sensor. Remember Canon was the first put out 21MP FF sensor when Sony can just barely did 12MP FF. Since then Sony have really caught up and left Canon behind. Kinda like TSMC and Intel too where TSMC caught up and left Intel on dust.

Samsung is also the other competitor for cellphone sensor too, but Samsung abandoned large format to go fully smartfone

[kye]

2 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

I doubt Sony is put out much by these numbers. Sony has never been that much of a 'camera' or 'lens' manufacturer - the 'camera business' is just a show case for their sensors. And in the sensor business they totally dominate (do Canon even use their own sensors anymore?)

Of course Sony's really big market is smartphone image sensors. There was a time that a smartphone had one image sensor - my latest phone (Xiaomi) has '5' (all Sony) and including a 1 inch sensor.

So I would reckon Sony are pretty ok with Canon dominating what is essentially a declining niche mirrorless camera market, Sony have essentially capture the fastest 'growth' area of the photo industry...

Wait until the autonomous vehicles and autonomous other-things market really starts ramping up - those things will have dozens of cameras, each needing an entire camera module of its own.

It is decades away, but the future is likely to have many times more autonomous devices than there are human beings, and they'll all need an array of various sensors.