Olympus abdicating entry level ILS market?

Impulses wrote:

I find it odd that EOS M is actually gaining ground and Nikon 1 is losing it... I know it's totally unrelated to the main M4/3 vs Alpha conversation but still. Did Japan have the same EOS M fire sales the US did last year? I guess that would contribute to it...

I think that's more to do with the EOS-M releasing mid-way through 2012. So its market share only represented half a year's sales, and probably before most reviews and things had come up. Secondly, EOS-M2 (Japan-only) was launched end of 2013. I expect for Japan only, its market share will probably be stronger still.

Kinda amusing the two mirrorless systems with the least amount of new lenses were the one experiencing the most growth. Dunno if that says something about the typical mirrorless buyer in Japan or it just traces back directly to the big sales.

The vast, vast majority of camera buyers, even DSLR users, only ever get the camera with the kit lens or a single superzoom. Lens choice is a plus only for a narrow segment of enthusiasts (disproportionately represented here at DPR, giving many people the mistaken assumption that everyone who owns a camera thinks like the average DPR reader), and even among these, most don't physically buy more than a half dozen lenses (or at least you can cover 99% of your photography with half a dozen lenses if you are settled on what you like to shoot, and not trying to have a do-everything kit). That's why the consistent prognosis on this particular forum that Sony have "abandoned" APS-C E-mount is quite silly and betrays a lack of understanding how the camera market functions (aside from the fact that all FE lenses work just fine on APS-C). In fact it sounds nice but falls at the slightest scrutiny.

Sony have been claiming worldwide market share of 40% of the mirrorless segment for some time now (undisputed by any rivals). And they certainly didn't reach 40% by selling FF cameras. Nope, the mainstay of Sony mirrorless is always going to be APS-C, and the entry-level at that.

We had this discussion in the Sony forums back when Sony "abandoned" the "NEX" branding. Some people were panicking but it was obvious that Sony could never vacate the APS-C/compact-body line because this was where the volume was. I have a bunch of friends and relatives with NEXes. Some even got theirs before I did, but they've never gone beyond their kit lenses (including the 2-lens 16mm + 18-55 combo). What the mass market and what the enthusiast market look for are very different things, and at the end of the day, the enthusiast market is much, much smaller - and Sony have moved most of their enthusiast MILC shooters to FF, and probably gained far more from other systems besides. So it makes plain economic sense to develop the FE lens lineup as a priority - for people likely to actually buy many lenses (rather than just for people to admire and talk about).