With both accurate and less accurate data now available for customers’ DSLR shopping habits in 2013 it is fair to say globally Canon won the popularity contest. In real terms being a hit with shoppers for Canon transferred to strong sales and happy share holders, whereas on the other end of the spectrum it was a somewhat gloomy year for Sony.
Good market data for Japan, released by BCN, shows Canon leading the ranking in DSLR sales with a huge 49.2% share of sales. Trailed closely by Nikon Corporation with 42.5% of the market and not surprisingly other makers in the DSLR market seem to have barely registered with Japanese consumers. Sony saw a 6% decline down from 7.2% in 2013, and failed to make it to third place being usurped by RICOH Imaging who took 5.2% of 2014’s DSLR market.With the rest of the world failing to provide such detailed statistics on customer behavior, and sales performances for 2013 insight on shopping habits can be gained by looking to Amazon’s US Best seller list. Corroborating the BCN rankings all 20 spots in their Digital SLR category currently belong to either Canon or Nikon, with Canon models holding all the top 5 spots.
The BCN Rankings indicated that, in Japan anyway, Mirrorless camera sales were as popular with purchasers as DSLRs and here at least Sony improved there performance by 6%. In this category neither Canon or Nikon get a look in with the market being more evenly split between Olympus (28.9), Sony (26.5) and Panasonic (14.2). With Japan being one of the trailblazers in all things cameras it will be interesting to see whether Mirrorless camera sales elsewhere in the world will grow, or steal their share of the sales market in the future.
What are you currently using DSLR or Mirrorless? What will your next purchase be? Does this data reflect your buying preference?