Japanese DSLR sales (update), and lessons therein

I guess I should amend my earlier post to include the bigger question besides why the difference.

The big question is, what are the retailers sales in other markets- US and Europe in particular. For example, is the C/N market share close to 50/50 in all markets, or does it look more like the DPR hit counter with C leading N by 2-3 to 1? Is Pentax actually on the map at 10-20%, and have sales of Sony's a100 really tailed off as much as shown?

Thanks for all the answers,

Frank

Hits and buys are two different things. I hit all the Canon DSLR's when I shopped. In fact, I always started by looking at Canon when I shopped for a camera. How many Canon's do I own? Zilch.

greentoe said:

1) quickly introducing new models increases your share;
Other notes: Olympus has flatlined.

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There is an obvious connection between these two points: the sales figures are for Japan only, where Olympus is not yet distributing it latest model, the E-400, so it has nothing newer than the E-330, none of the "double digit megapixel" marketing magic, and with the E-500 from "way back in 2005" probably still its top seller.

European figures would probably be significantly different, since the E-400 is on sale there, and even before the E-400, Olympus was making 40% of its sales in Europe (so Olympus makes a higher proportion of its global sales in Europe than the industry average). Even global market share and growth trend is probably significantly better for Olympus than the Japanese figures, due to the substantial weight of European sales.

Two Truths said:

Franka T.L. said:

a System need to be a system, and that means variety of lens , and
different bodies for different customers. Sony A-100D open wityh a
bang and yet Pentax, even late to the game and consistently out
marketed by Sony prevail. The DS2, DL2 and the K100D also bear a
significant part of the sales too.

Click to expand...

I don't get your point; the graphs show Sony overall ahead of
Pentax...

Click to expand...

It shows nothing of the sort...

Two Truths said:

and that's with only one model from Sony, whereas Pentax
has three released this year.

For about a third of the graph; Pentax has had more sales than
Sony, with Pentax's highest share at any point being about 20%.
However; for about two thirds of the graph, Sony has had more sales
than Pentax, with Sony's highest share at any point being about 35%.

Click to expand...

You're not looking at "which" two thirds.

That 35% for Sony is a "spike" at the initial launch of the camera. The 1/3 that Pentax has is where it counts, the all important holiday season.

Two Truths said:

As for Pentax "coming out on top at the end"... well they have just
released a new camera, so I would expect some kind of blip. Sony
released their camera six months ago already.

Click to expand...

Would you expect four blips? Pentax released cameras months ago, too. Look at the overall trends.

"Understanding is a three edged sword. Your side, their side, and the truth" - Kosh Naranek

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Ciao! Joe

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caveguru said:

The big question is, what are the retailers sales in other markets-
US and Europe in particular. For example, is the C/N market share
close to 50/50 in all markets, or does it look more like the DPR
hit counter with C leading N by 2-3 to 1? Is Pentax actually on
the map at 10-20%, and have sales of Sony's a100 really tailed off
as much as shown?

Click to expand...

There's no perfect answer to your question. Let me give you some of the things that make it difficult to say specifically:

• Canon has a different fiscal year than the others, so their officially stated numbers are off by a quarter.
• Some makers issue production figures that allow you to get a quarterly snapshot, some half-year, some only annually, and some don't issue the numbers at all.
• In terms of third-party numbers, you basically have two semi-reliable sources: CIPA and IDC. CIPA gives you production numbers, IDC gives you sales numbers.
• Production and sales numbers are different because some DSLRs sit for awhile before selling. For example, I don't believe the D50 and D70s are being produced any more, but they are selling in significant numbers still as inventory already counted by CIPA works its way down the chain to sales (IDC numbers).

That said, Nikon says that it will sell 2m DSLRs in their current fiscal year (April to April) and Canon says that it will sell 2.5m DSLRs in the current calendar year (this estimate hasn't been updated for awhile that I know of). The thing that has all of us scratching our head is that CIPA is still saying 4.5m units in 2006, which would mean that Canon and Nikon were the only producers. Someone is wrong. (Yes, I know that Nikon didn't ship 2m in calendar 2006, probably something closer to 1.6 to 1.7m, but that would still say that either the CIPA number is wrong or Canon's estimate is off.)

The best guess I have right now is that Nikon is slightly over 35% of the DSLR market and Canon is running at between 45 and 50%. My confidence level rises for past numbers (as you eventually get enough different data points to correlate them better). In the past, say 2005, Canon was 52% and Nikon was 34% (+ - 3 pts).

What seems clear is that Nikon's production is growing faster than the overall market, so if you don't see Nikon bodies piling up in inventory on store shelves, that means they're growing market share at someone's expense.

Meanwhile Pentax is also making production number claims that would indicate that they're growing faster than the overall market, so the same thing goes for them.

My current guesses at what happened in to-customer sales for the second half of 2006:

• Canon slightly down
• Nikon slightly up

But those two are still > 85% of the market

• Pentax up
• Olympus down
• Sigma down
• Fujifilm down

Sony is new to the market and a more difficult call since they effectively went from multiple cameras (as KM) to a single camera. Also, there was a pent-up demand from legacy lens owners that quickly faded.

--
Thom Hogan
author, Nikon Field Guide & Nikon Flash Guide
editor, Nikon DSLR Report
author, Complete Guides: D50, D70, D100, D200, D1 series, D2h, D2x, S2 Pro
http://www.bythom.com

For my fellow English speaking forum members, Google has a decent new beta release of their language converter from Japanese to English that work surprisingly well. It's not flawless as K10D would apparently have a "rubbish removal function", but it's more than good enough to get an idea of the meaning.

http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

If you are using a localized version of Google outside the US look for a "Language Tools" link on your Google home page. Go down to the "Translate" section and paste the URL into the "Translate a web page:" field, select "Japanese to English BETA", finally click the "Translate" button. I've been using it a lot since I moved from the US to Germany and the Japanese conversion seems to work better than German. It's a nice tool for reading native articles from the camera homeland.

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbcnranking.jp%2Fflash%2F09-00011835.html&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

--
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I find your posts on the japanese market very valuable, since I can't read Japanese, and the computer-translation webware has many limitations.

greentoe said:

BCN has released new DSLR share figures for the Japanese market:

http://bcnranking.jp/flash/09-00011835.html

The share graph is halfway down the page...
(the share graph key reads N,C,P,S,O top to bottom.)
BTW, BCN does't seem to like us directly linking their graphs
anymore :-(

Lessons to be learned (acutally relearned as they are already well
known):
1) quickly introducing new models increases your share;
2) your factory counts.

Note that with the introdution of the D40 Nikon has been able to
eek ahead of Canon... unlike Canon, Nikon (in Japan anyway)
currently doesn't depend on one or two models to carry the bulk of
sales, but they are carried by the D40, D80, and still the D200 and
even still a bit by the D50.

Pentax could not fill all the pre-orders of the K10D here in the
first shipment, which also means there are none currently available
to buy in the stores, duing the single most important month of the
year for these kind of sales. You see the K10D blip, but
immediately share falls down back to the K100D level.... your
factory counts. You can't deliver what you don't have...

Other notes: Olympus has flatlined. Let's see... the Oly colors
are blue, yes? "Code Blue" comes to mind... Fits what I see when
I am in the stores... basically the warm bodies are huddled around
the Nikon, Canon, and even Pentax displays.

-gt

Click to expand...

--
Comprehensive Photokina 2006 speculation: http://photographyetc.livejournal.com

Thanks Thom, that really answered my question. Much appreciated.

Frank

Never seem to have enough time to do these sort of things justice... for example that BCN article is trying to answer why DSLR sale in Japan are increasing over last year... and posit that the new arrival of budget models is worth analyzing... and looks at the ratio of body-only vs kit sales, etc.

These forums like these types of articles... and even if Thom H. doesn't see POS sampling as particularly accurate, I do believe that the curve over time (look at the slope, or first derivative) does indeed tell a compelling story, to which all manufacturers must pay close attention, and which will finally affect the actual end user of the produts (you and me.)

-gt

I see strong competition...

the numbers of FY 2005/06 (Canon 2005) haven been reported:

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/061123/3/2tddq.html

Canon: 1,900,000
Nikon: 1,340,000
Olympus 250,000
Pentax 100,000
Minolta 90,000 (first half of FY 2005/06)

There are also prediction numbers for 2006/07, but we will know those real numbers in a few months anyway....

I would also be interested in lens sales, because I guess especially Canon is selling lots of expensive and high margin lenses, Nikon a bit less so (most rich people seem to prefer Canon), Olympuse should sell more new lenses than pentax, because the used marekt is smaller and Minolta/Sony will sell littel new (expensive) lenses because there are hardly any available, that you could buy...

Anyway, there are only about 7-8 Mio lenses to be sold in 2006 to be mounted on aboz 5 Mio new DSLRs, so the average DSLR user is only using 1,6 lenses.

(btw, most sold lenses are lenses made for small sensor DSLRs and are not compatible to 35mm cameras)

Scott Eaton said:

I've got money on Oly giving up on the 4/3 line and releasing a
standard APS model at some point, if anything out of pure
desperation. Raucus forums of 4/3 users don't make share holders
happy nor generate cash flow.

Click to expand...

Olympus doesn't need a large market share to make a profit, and their recent financials have been positive. It's better to be Porsche than GM.

--
mumbo jumbo

Cephalotus said:

I would also be interested in lens sales, because I guess
especially Canon is selling lots of expensive and high margin
lenses, Nikon a bit less so (most rich people seem to prefer
Canon),

Click to expand...

Nikon's current fiscal year estimate is 2.2m units.

Cephalotus said:

Anyway, there are only about 7-8 Mio lenses to be sold in 2006 to
be mounted on aboz 5 Mio new DSLRs, so the average DSLR user is
only using 1,6 lenses.

Click to expand...

Careful with your language. The average DSLR purchaser is BUYING 1.x NEW lenses. In the Nikon world, with over 40m lenses in existence, you'd have to assume that at least some of those are being used by DSLR owners. Moreover, it's difficult to get a handle on third-party lenses. When you add those into the mix, the current number for Nikon DSLR purchasers tends to be closer to 2 Nikon mount lenses per Nikon DSLR.

--
Thom Hogan
author, Nikon Field Guide & Nikon Flash Guide
editor, Nikon DSLR Report
author, Complete Guides: D50, D70, D100, D200, D1 series, D2h, D2x, S2 Pro
http://www.bythom.com

greentoe said:

These forums like these types of articles... and even if Thom H.
doesn't see POS sampling as particularly accurate,

Click to expand...

I didn't say it was not accurate, just that it is not a good predictor of overall market share. Even in Japan it may not be a great predictor of overall market share, though it certainly accurate represents what's moving through the surveyed outlets.

greentoe said:

I do believe
that the curve over time (look at the slope, or first derivative)
does indeed tell a compelling story, to which all manufacturers
must pay close attention, and which will finally affect the actual
end user of the produts (you and me.)

Click to expand...

The worry many of us have is that the Japanese companies pay too much attention to the Japanese market numbers. One thing you have to be careful of in trying to integrate real world survey and buying results with product development plans is that you're mixing apples with apples. You only have to shoot with a few groups of Japanese photographers and then with a few groups of American or European photographers to see that they value different things in a camera and use them differently. You have to wonder whether or not the demise of products like the Coolpix 8800 and the Sony R1 are due to too much dependence upon home market information (both for the initial design and for the eventual rejection of them as being too big for a "compact camera").

--
Thom Hogan
author, Nikon Field Guide & Nikon Flash Guide
editor, Nikon DSLR Report
author, Complete Guides: D50, D70, D100, D200, D1 series, D2h, D2x, S2 Pro
http://www.bythom.com

everywhere a myope...

One learns very quickly, when visiting a Japanese camera store here to check out cameras, that the first thing to do when checking out a camera is find the dioptre correction in order to set it back to neutral from the extreme setting to correct for near-sightedness. I've been wandering about camera stores here for a few years now and but on only a few occasions had this not been true. A large majority of Nihonjin are myopes but many don't normally wear correction....

Yup, I have no doubt that the Japanese companies are disproportionately (wrt worldwide market share) influenced by the home market. The group dynamics here are fascinating to watch, in whatever aspect of life. A quick look at the local magazine rack tonight at all the Jan '07 photo rags... and as usuall they pretty much all lock step... invariably the rags concentrate on what I consider to be very trivial differences between camera models and totally ignore bigger issues.

Love the place here and the people (most of them anyway), but with the good things must come the bad too... and that is true of cameras and camera companies too I think...

Regarding BCN, my suspicions are that the involved retailers find the data more useful than any of us - they get the data fresh weekly (the public normally has to wait a couple of weeks if they get it at all), thus retailers can arrange their floors or offer promotions to ride a wave of popularity for any given product, and especially to brightly flag the #1 and #2 sellers for those buyers to whom that is important, etc... Small retailers outside of Tokyo might find the fresh data even more important.

-gt

D Q E said:

Scott Eaton said:

I've got money on Oly giving up on the 4/3 line and releasing a
standard APS model at some point, if anything out of pure
desperation. Raucus forums of 4/3 users don't make share holders
happy nor generate cash flow.

Click to expand...

Olympus doesn't need a large market share to make a profit, and
their recent financials have been positive. It's better to be
Porsche than GM.

Click to expand...

Porsche is similar to GM. They're part of a complex system of interlocking directorates with Volkswagen and Audi.

--
Normally, a signature this small can't open its own jumpgate.

Ciao! Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com

greentoe said:

whatever aspect of life. A quick look at the local magazine rack
tonight at all the Jan '07 photo rags... and as usuall they pretty
much all lock step... invariably the rags concentrate on what I
consider to be very trivial differences between camera models and
totally ignore bigger issues.

Click to expand...

I'm curious - could you give an example of the differences they choose to concentrate on vs. those you think are more relevant? I am always interested to hear how people in other parts of the world perceive things. Here in Canada we tend to get a heavily American biased view of the world and forget that there's a lot more out there
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Allen George said:

Here in Canada we tend to get a heavily American
biased view of the world and forget that there's a lot more out
there

Click to expand...

I've lived in Canada. Why not read Canadian magazines/newspapers/websites and watch Canadian TV if you feel you "get a heavily American biased view of the world"? While living in Canada I often heard these kinds of comments and never quite understood them. Canada is relatively free and nothing is forcing you, or other Canadians, to gorge yourself on American media sources.

--
Henry Richardson
http://www.hrich.com
http://www.printroom.com/pro/intrepid

Joseph S. Wisniewski said:

Joseph S Wisniewski said:

Olympus doesn't need a large market share to make a profit, and
their recent financials have been positive. It's better to be
Porsche than GM.

Click to expand...

Porsche is similar to GM. They're part of a complex system of
interlocking directorates with Volkswagen and Audi.

Click to expand...

Porsche is low volume and profitable, GM is high volume and unprofitable. Ownership structures are not similar and irrelevant.

--
mumbo jumbo