Canon’s global mirrorless market share sits at 41%, with Sony as their “biggest competitor”

[Deleted member 386702]

Canon management seems to be the problem. Too late and bad decisions. ...

Or maybe they are just trying to find a way to anticipate/manage the fact that the sport photographers niche is (becoming) more and more a niche and is (becoming) less and less overseen by the vast majority of their (future) customers, resulting in that their old "flagship" notion may become less and less significant for their business (and so, for their commercial management).
On the other hand, discontinuing the "1" mark for their "new" system may have been at least questionnable if done (maybe they tried with the R3 and changed their mind, who knows, BTW some have already suggest this hypothesis).

Overall, about high end cameras, the way I'd' sum it up may be :
- the "1" mark was a first for Sony alpha line and is not the same kind of "flagship" we knew <=> the target is not as clear as it was for DSLRs, sounding like just having the biggest specs sheet for the highest price because, you know, 'I dreamed of it, etc..'
- At Nikon, they have also made it another way => top multi purpose pro hybrid camera as Z9 with a Z8 that is just a "baby Z9", sounding like they're just trying their best for a smaller company and to my sense, it's quite OK
- Canon seems to be still more on the line of what the "1" mark means back in the days of DSLRs, maybe partly to maintain some kind of history/identity , partly to keep it their own way against competitors... and also probably for some other reasons they may know better than us including things like budget, planification etc... .

In that regard, and also considering the relative success of Canon's strategy until now, it may only be more a problem for the customers, to know if they still want to invest in the brand or not.
My personal answer, as I didn't ever give a damn to "sports" flagships, is a always kind of "Yes, maybe, but...".
Still, I'm sure that if Canon would have to address that kind of behavior, they'd also probably dodge the "but"...

 

[Deleted member 386702]

Canon is Doomed™

I mean they only release two cameras with the most revolutionary AF since eye AF and everyone's like 'is that all you got'?

With the exception of Jared Polin, it seems... BTW, he made the best shots of the whole invited tubers, to my sense. Maybe he's the only one that understood the way it works

 

[P-visie]

The R1 and R5 Mk II and the cooling grip are on Canon’s ‘product supply status’ page, so we might have to wait longer.

Link (google translated).

 

[EOS 4 Life]

Canon management seems to be the problem.

What problem is that?
Canon gained mirrorless market share.

 

[EOS 4 Life]

As the old guard dies out there wont be enough people to replace them.

Canon's strategy is to attract new customers with cheaper cameras at the low end.
They have no competition there.
They are not just relying on existing customers.
Neither is Sony.
Canon gained the most market share but Sony also gained a little.
Nikon gained some as well.
Everyone else is in trouble.

 

[EOS 4 Life]

Sony has the disadvantage of competing with 3rd parties for lenses so they have to focus more on bodies.

That will come to Canon as well and Sony sells more lenses than Sony does.
That may have more to do with Canon's struggle to keep up with demand, see RF 200-800.
Canon makes better lenses but Sony seems better at making lenses.

 

[EOS 4 Life]

Canon's video implementation improvements in their hybrid cameras have dominated the spec sheets. From the 5Dii to the R8's first 8k raw offering. Even dual still/cinema menus on the R5c and releasing VR lenses.

Canon isn't afraid the release quirky or niche products targeting the video space eg the Powershot V10 VLOG and Apple vision pro support

I get that you are trying to generate debate and argument but I don't think that you are looking at the overall picture clearly

Well said.
VR is certainly not for the "old guard".

 

[EOS 4 Life]

Also, your theory that Sony is doing the right idea - is wrong, and I've written about this so many times that I'm not going to get into here. but continuing to push only the upper tier assures that sooner or later your only users stop upgrading, and your user sales plummet

As true as that is, Sony has been pretty successful at getting their user base to upgrade.
The a7 IV was pretty meh on balance but sold like crazy.
Sony gave up the very bottom of the market because they could not profitably compete with Canon.
So has everyone.
Even though Sony's entry level is higher than Canon's but it is still low enough to bring in new customers, see ZV-1 and ZV-10.

 

[EOS 4 Life]

The R1 and R5 Mk II and the cooling grip are on Canon’s ‘product supply status’ page, so we might have to wait longer.

Link (google translated).

You mean the R1 that is a "total flop" and "no one is buying", that R1?

 

[David - Sydney]

As true as that is, Sony has been pretty successful at getting their user base to upgrade.

they didn’t have a choice… canon seemed to leading the feature upgrades in firmware releases whereas Sony preferred users to buy a new body.
Nikon has had some good feature updates recently and Sony seems to catching on.

 

[Richard CN]

You mean the R1 that is a "total flop" and "no one is buying", that R1?

As a matter of fact.. i said the same thing

Canon EOS R1, EOS R5 Mark II and CF-R20EP Short Supply Notice

Perhaps not something that should surprise anyone (thanks for the heads up P-Visie), Canon has issued a notice that everything once again is in short supply and will take some time to catch up to…

www.canonrumors.com

 

[Richard CN]

As true as that is, Sony has been pretty successful at getting their user base to upgrade.
The a7 IV was pretty meh on balance but sold like crazy.
Sony gave up the very bottom of the market because they could not profitably compete with Canon.
So has everyone.
Even though Sony's entry level is higher than Canon's but it is still low enough to bring in new customers, see ZV-1 and ZV-10.

yes but how many are buying new ones now versus 10 years ago?

We know that Sony sold somewhere around 1.5m cameras last year

and I brought receipts from Sony's financials when they did report their unit numbers

Millions of units / year

17 2012
11.5 2013
8.5 2014
6.1 2015
4.2 2016
3.9 2017
3.9 2018
3 2019


1.5 2023

So yeah. Maybe we should start a Sony is Doomed™

 

[Deleted member 386702]

17 2012
11.5 2013
8.5 2014
6.1 2015
4.2 2016
3.9 2017
3.9 2018
3 2019


1.5 2023

Looks like "Half Life principle" ... every four years since 2015 https://fs.blog/half-life/#:~:text=The Basics,unstable atomic particles lose energy.
That way until their holdings says it's not enough anymore...

 

[neuroanatomist]

Canon is Doomed™

I mean they only release two cameras with the most revolutionary AF since eye AF and everyone's like 'is that all you got'?

Megapixels are all that matters. Obviously you didn't get the memo.

 

[P-visie]

Maybe we should start a Sony is Doomed™

That’s common knowledge and has no news value . So making posts and videos about Sony and the D-word doesn’t get the same amount of clicks and views as predicting Canon’s doom and gloom.

And it is probably too hard for a lot of editors and YouTubers to derive a trend from the numbers you posted.

 

[CJaurelius]

I'm not going to respond point by point (you make several good ones, balanced by some poor ones), but I will suggest that you avoid unwarranted assumptions.

How do you know Sony's cameras are more profitable? You show data on revenue, I trust you understand that higher revenue does not necessarily mean higher profit.

I like this reasonable side of you Yes I'm making assumptions, none of us have 100% of the data. But I'm not saying that Sony's cameras are more profitable. I'm saying high end cameras are more profitable than low end cameras. This isn't a Sony vs Canon thing for me as I don't care about brands I just care about tech.

Take the R50 and the R7. Clearly the R7 has a lot more margin than the R50. The cost to make the R7 isn't double the R50. So in a market where smartphones are eating the bottom of the market and only a smaller amount of cameras are going to be sold it's better to sell more R7's than R50's. And Canon is moving in that direction as well. They aren't increasing revenue by selling more cameras they're increasing revenue while camera sales are largely flat, thereby shifting towards higher end cameras.

All camera manufactures are moving in this direction, the others were just forced to do it sooner as they never could compete in the low end market in the first place.

 

[CJaurelius]

Canon has stated that they will still keep producing DLSRs as long as people want them (and they are profitable)

The market share has dipped hugely but you have to remember that there are users in countries that are extremely price sensitive and for the moment, those lower specced models are still much cheaper than similar mirrorless models. The tipping point may change in the future but until then many sales will happen in that segment.

DSLR's will most likely drop to around 1M this year. With a 100k - 200k decrease per year they will be all but gone in 5 years. I mean will there still be a few people using them? Sure. There are people still shooting film today, but film camears are not a significant part of the business.

We have discussed this in the forum many times and although phone cameras are amazing, wedding photographers using them aren't seen as "professional" if they are using the same model as what the couple have in their hands irrespective of their skills.

But you can only sell so many cameras to wedding photographers. Plus add in the fact that the technology advancements are slowing down meaning they won't need to upgrade as fast. If Canon sells a high end camera to a wedding photographer in 2024 that person most likely wont need an upgrade for a decade plus. Not to get to deep but most populations are leveling off. So who are they going to sell all these cameras to in the future? Heck with AI we may not even have traditional "wedding photographers" in 10 years.

Canon might not release a new DLSR but all the development costs are full amortised so as long as the parts are still available they will be profitable.
There will also be rusted-on 5Div and 1DXiii users that want to continue to use a new one once their aging ones die. The 8 year 5Div is still on sale new. Maybe it is just remaining stock but new batches can be made if there is demand.

But every years that passes the tech gets older and older. No one is going to be making new batches of 10 year old cameras. The old mirrorless cameras will be a better value propisition.

 

[neuroanatomist]

DSLR's will most likely drop to around 1M this year. With a 100k - 200k decrease per year they will be all but gone in 5 years. I mean will there still be a few people using them? Sure. There are people still shooting film today, but film camears are not a significant part of the business.

But you can only sell so many cameras to wedding photographers. Plus add in the fact that the technology advancements are slowing down meaning they won't need to upgrade as fast. If Canon sells a high end camera to a wedding photographer in 2024 that person most likely wont need an upgrade for a decade plus. Not to get to deep but most populations are leveling off. So who are they going to sell all these cameras to in the future? Heck with AI we may not even have traditional "wedding photographers" in 10 years.

But every years that passes the tech gets older and older. No one is going to be making new batches of 10 year old cameras. The old mirrorless cameras will be a better value propisition.

All well and good. But what makes you think Canon is unaware of any of this? The objective reality is that the market has changed dramatically over the past decade, and that Canon has maintained their market dominance throughout those changes.

Only time will tell. But having been on this forum for 14 years, I've seen many (many!) predictions of doom for Canon. YAPODFC. In spite of the many 'experts' predicting said doom, Canon's market share and dominance have continued. Those predicting doom somehow think they know the camera market better than Canon, and that's just unrealistic. It doesn't help when morons who have no understanding of how to interpret data wade in with fatally flawed analyses, followed by people believing that false information and repeating it (to be clear, not aimed at you and thanks again for your acknowledgement; but the information seems to be propagating nicely, no doubt because it makes good clickbait and that is more important to those posting it than being accurate or honest)..

The takeaway is this...Canon appears to be doing just fine. They are at a 48% ILC market share, and even as DSLR sales continue to fall they predict they'll have a 49% market share this year. So feel free to continue predicting their doom. If they fall to #2 in the ILC market, feel free to shout I TOLD YOU SO from the forum rooftop. Until then, your YAPODFC is just more hot air.

 

[CJaurelius]

This is nonsense. Every camera company (sans Nikon it seems) has been moving away from Cameras.

I literally said the same thing. This is not Canon vs other company, this is where I think the market is headed.

Sony is moving away from cameras because they could never compete head-on.

I also litereally said this as well. Instead of competing to be #1 which they probably would've never done, they looked at the market and said why try to compete in a segment that won't be here in the future. I don't care about low end digital cameras or who sells the most of them because I usually have better tech always with me in my pocket.

Also, your theory that Sony is doing the right idea - is wrong, and I've written about this so many times that I'm not going to get into here. but continuing to push only the upper tier assures that sooner or later your only users stop upgrading, and your user sales plummet. I've written about it. Thom Hogan has written about it. Maybe your YouTubers haven't but the subject is probably too complicated for them.

This is exactly what has ALREADY happened. Camera makers used to sell 100M+ cameras a year and now they're lucky to sell 8M. The only thing they can do is sell high end cameras. I think most people here would agree that image quality is great accross the board. The nuances between these cameras at this point is minor. Heck the $1,600 apsc Fuji X100VI is a much better success than the $1,300 full frame Canon R8.

Multiple people here have showed Canon's projected forecast of 2.8M ILC camera sales in 2024. And while this may end up being 49% of the market that is DOWN from 2.88M in 2023. So they are projecting revenue to INCREASE while the number of camera sales DECREASE.

AGAIN, this problem isn't specific to CANON. They ALL have this problem. The question is how do these companies transition into the future environment where traditional cameras are more and more niche.

 

[John Wilde]

I don't care about low end digital cameras or who sells the most of them because I usually have better tech always with me in my pocket.

So, you think that first-time camera buyers are going to spend thousands of dollars on a high end camera? I don't. Entry-level cameras create new customers who may upgrade to higher-end cameras in the future.