Slumping camera sales are a sad snapshot of an industry out-selfied by smartphones

Slumping camera sales are a sad snapshot of an industry out-selfied by smartphones
New data from the camera industry shows that camera sales have fallenfrom 122m units in 2010 to just 20m units last year.

And that bleak picture is on track to get even uglier this year: There were only 7m cameras sold in the first 6 months of 2019.

So, are cameras dead?
No, they’re just not standalone cameras anymore -- they’re smartphone cameras. Interestingly, people are actually taking more pictures than ever before… but they’re increasingly taking them on iPhones.

Big camera companies are no longer competing against each other for market share -- they’re competing against well-funded hardware giants like Apple, Samsung, Huawei, and Google.

And it’s not looking pretty. All of the 4 largest camera companies -- Sony, Nikon, Canon, and Fuji -- are posting continuing declines.

But smartphones aren’t the only reason that traditional camera sales numbers have fallen out of focus...

Camera companies zoomed in on the wrong part of the picture
Rather than focusing on adapting cameras to changing customer preferences, they doubled down on features that no one asked for -- extra megapixels over easy-to-use filters, fancy lenses over share buttons.

And, as investor Om Malik points out, focusing on the wrong features not only repelled would-be customers who wanted modern cameras, it also drove up the prices of cameras from 2011 to 2019 -- alienating even die-hard camera geeks.

Now, ironically, some of the only standalone cameras that are gaining in popularity are retro, nostalgia-inducing cameras like Leicas -- which have hardly any of the bells and whistles that Sony and Nikon bet so big on.

 

An slr will be able to do many things that a point and shoot can’t. But the set of those things is shrinking every day.

 

it's ridiculous the quality pictures a phone can take now a days. I've got an SLR as well, the rechargeable batteries are prolly not any good anymore.

 

My SLR takes amazing pics but to bring it in a backpack with all the lenses and drag it out and put it away in a crowded area is a royal pain in the ass. Pull phone out of pocket snap and put away in 5 seconds. Just to easy to use with great quality to light around that big thing.

 

This is too funny. Dealmaker... I owe you one. I read this thread and was gonna chime in with my old camera I bought for someone to use that was working with me at the time and remark how it used to be the sh*t and now its worthless. I had no idea! I was looking it up to find a picture of it to post, and lo and behold there's a big market for these apparently. I mean I knew it was a great camera, but I figured it was useless now. I have all the bells and whistles for this thing too. 2 lenses to boot. I might have 3. Its barely used. Hmph.

... and I was just remarking about Americans, their love of junk, and their storage lockers. I'm just as guilty, and that's exactly where this forgotten little gem resides. In which box however, I have no friggin clue. But its in there somewhere.

One of these... a 501C. https://tinyurl.com/y4ndybwh
Note that most of these are only the camera body. There's a ton of accessories that are needed to use one of these stupid things, I have them all and then some. The funny thing is I have been threatening to go thru that storage garage and give 90% of the stuff to the Goodwill Store. I hate "junk". That camera would have surely went. Might as well hold on to it now. Pass it down. I hope I packed it well. Good job DM.

 

There will come a point (it may already be here) when it'd be worth buying only the most high-end professional cameras in case one has a photography hobby, let alone a profession, but the average Joe already has a pretty great camera in their cellphone, so getting a camera too will become (has become?) an unnecessary expense.