The Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) just announced the camera industry’s 2009 sales results, and introduced its forecasts for 2010.
Overall sales fell by 12% in 2009 to 106 million units. However, digital SLR cameras sales actually grew by 2.3%, now comprising 9% of the overall market. For 2010, CIPA predicts that integrated-lens camera sales will rise 3.0%, with DSLRs and interchangeable lens cameras sales up 11% over 2009.
Interesting – the high end of the camera market, DSLR’s, keep growing.
Now why could this be? First, I’d imagine that product cycles have something to do with it. 2009 saw a lot of great new DSLR cameras, including the Nikon D5000, Canon 7d, and Panasonic LMC-GH1. Yes, I know the GH1 is not a DSLR but I’m lumping it in because it has interchangeable lenses and it’s targeted at advanced amateurs.
Another factor is the emergence of the DSLR-as-camcorder. The personal videos I’ve made with my T1i have been AWFUL. I mean, the picture quality rocks but I can’t keep focus for sh*t. However, there are some people out there like Vincent LaForet making amazing videos with their DSLRs – and it’s great marketing for a lot of the hotter new cameras.
I mean, just take a look at this:
Videos like these are exciting a lot of people, and more and more photographers are upgrading to video-capable models like the Canon 7D and Canon 1D Mark IV. At the same time, videographers are migrating to DSLR’s to take advantage of the outstanding image quality and shallow depth-of-field capabilities. In English, that means it’s easy to make the backgrounds look blurry in a cool way. So far, Canon (CAJ) has been leading the way in the DSLR video boom, but Nikon is catching up.
These two trends are helping DSLR’s avoid the decline in the point-and-shoot digital camera world, which is being cannibalized by cell-phone cameras. In fact, the Apple iPhone is now the most popular camera used in photos posted on Flickr. It’s just good enough for the average person.
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