[Takumar55]

Interesting article came out today saying that mirrorless camera sales are rapidly losing ground to cell phone cameras. It basically says only the SLR makers are doing OK, mentioning Nikon, Canon, and Sony there. Panasonic, Fujifilm, and Olympus all struggling with mirrorless-only ILCs. And all are expected to drop their compact camera lines. No mention of Pentax - hopefully they're hanging in!

Here are three bullets from the beginning of the article:
"
* Panasonic, Fujifilm, Olympus camera divisions all losing money
* Sales of once promising "mirrorless" format devices are sputtering
* Consumers prioritising connectivity to social networks
"

It makes me wonder, since I was quite impressed with the new Sony electronic viewfinders.

Japan mid-tier camera makers face shakeout as smartphones shatter mirrorless hopes | Reuters

[starjedi]

Interesting article came out today saying that mirrorless camera sales are rapidly losing ground to cell phone cameras. It basically says only the SLR makers are doing OK, mentioning Nikon, Canon, and Sony there. Panasonic, Fujifilm, and Olympus all struggling with mirrorless-only ILCs. And all are expected to drop their compact camera lines. No mention of Pentax - hopefully they're hanging in!

Here are three bullets from the beginning of the article:
"
* Panasonic, Fujifilm, Olympus camera divisions all losing money
* Sales of once promising "mirrorless" format devices are sputtering
* Consumers prioritising connectivity to social networks
"

It makes me wonder, since I was quite impressed with the new Sony electronic viewfinders.

Japan mid-tier camera makers face shakeout as smartphones shatter mirrorless hopes | Reuters

""Only those who have a strong brand and are competitive on price will last - and only Canon, Nikon and Sony fulfil that criteria," added Yoshida.
Canon and Nikon dominate the SLR camera market, while Sony could survive any shakeout thanks to its strength in making sensors for a number of camera manufacturers as well as collaboration with its smartphone division."

[NZ_Ross]

Thom Hogan has been writing about this issue for a while, obviously from a more Nikon view point. His recent articles 'tough camera questions', 'bunker strategy', 'The Short Answer' and 'The Short Answer Part II' provide really good background commentary on the subject.

Thom tracks the Japanese CIPA numbers and camera company annual reports. The numbers don't lie about what is selling and what is not.

The takeaways from all Thom's good analysis:
*DX/APS DSLR's still dominate the interchangeable lens camera market
*Nikon and Canon dominate the interchangeable lens camera market
*Mirrorless camera sales are not breaking out (although up in Asia) in USA or Europe - and are basically flat at the moment
*Only Nikon and Canon are making profit with camera's - everyone else is losing money

The bad news for Ricoh/Pentax - their market share is not increasing, and making money on camera's is an issue.

The good news for Ricoh/Pentax - with the K3 they currently provide arguably the best high end APS sized camera in the market(and remember APS-C is the largest segment of the interchangeable lens camera market based on actual sales).

It is fair to say Thom Hogan is no great friend of Pentax, but my opinion he is relatively fair in his overall analysis.

In the article 'Meanwhile, meet the Pentax D400' he praises the Pentax K3 for being the camera the Nikon D400 (yet to be released) should be, and almost suggests that high end Nikon DX/APS shooters consider changing systems.

This is relatively high praise from Thom for the Pentax K3 - which is good news

[krebsy75]

This industry is changing at breakneck speed. Anyone who thinks they've got this all figured out are ill-informed, to say the least.

[clackers]

This industry is changing at breakneck speed. Anyone who thinks they've got this all figured out are ill-informed, to say the least.

Krebsy, did you read the Reuters article?

The analysts say compacts will take a smashing next year.

[ChopperCharles]

*cameras

[philbaum]

The Reuters article seems like just a superficial job to me - i wouldn't pay any attention to it.

Thom Hogan i have more faith in and his quote is: Overall, mirrorless is holding its own

According to this thread on dpreview: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3598038

DSLR

By manufacturer: Canon 49.2%, Nikon 42.5%, Pentax 5.2%, Sony 3.1%
The only Pentax in the top 20 is the K-30 in 11th place with 3.4 percent.
The K-50, K-5 series and K-3 are out of the ranking, but bring Pentax’s total share to 5.2%, which is a bit better than 2012. (PS. K-3 was only released last month; it will be interesting to see what happens next year with the K-3 selling from day one)
Meanwhile, Sony dropped from over 6% in 2012 to just 3.1% this year.
Full frame still accounts for less than 10% of the top 20.

Mirrorless

By manufacturer: Olympus 29.1%, Sony 26.4%, Panasonic 14.2%, Pentax 9.8%, Nikon 9.34%, Canon 9.25%
Sony overtook Panasonic this year.
Pentax overtook Nikon this year.
Pentax share went up from 7.1 % in 2012 to 9.8%, but this was all Q (with no contribution from the K-01, which ranked last year).
No Fuji models made the ranking at all.
Same as last year, there are very few EVF models in the ranking. Of course it has to do with cost, but it seems the Japanese are not prepared to pay extra for an EVF.

AT least by the Japan BCN numbers, Pentax is making some small progress, and these numbers do not include more than about a month of K3 sales.

[NZ_Ross]

AT least by the Japan BCN numbers, Pentax is making some small progress, and these numbers do not include more than about a month of K3 sales.

Thanks for sharing that info - I have had a look at the original numbers on the Japanese table. APS-C 91.3%, Full Frame 8.7% of DSLR market. Based on those numbers - if I was manufacturing I know which market I would be concentrating on

Just playing with some math. If Pentax were to hold the same percentage in the FF market as they currently hold in the APS-C market (5.2%) then Pentax FF share of the total DSLR market 8.7*5.2% would be 0.5% (actual 0.452 but rounded for ease of discussion).

Is 0.5% or even if they doubled their market % - 1% of total DSLR market actually going to provide a return on effort for the production of a new line of cameras. If you are holding out for a Pentax FF then we can only hope so

[Miguel]

Thom Hogan i have more faith in

Meh, Thom Hogan has a significant vested interest in promoting the popularity of mirrorless cameras. After all, he is positioning himself as an expert in this area which itself is a fairly recent extension of his "brand" from being Nikon-centric. If something he is proclaiming to be worthy of page views is in reality a dud, well then. . . Let's see how long it is until he changes channels once again for the next messiah format.

M

[NZ_Ross]

Looking at those mirrorless numbers and individual camera percentages in the Japanese top 20 table - Q10, 7th at 4.3%; Q, 15th at 1.9%; Q7, 18th at 1.6%.

So all 3 Q models in the top 20 - I am surprised how well they are doing. They have been just about invisible here in NZ. Having said that I have just brought a Q off the PF Marketplace and have been pleasantly surprised at the build quality, and image quality given the sensor size.

What is really surprising to me about this top 20 data is that of the high end mirrorless 'halo' cameras generating the most praise in online reviews, only the Lumix is in the top half of the table - Lumix GF6, 8th at 4.2%; Lumix GX1, 16th at 1.8%; Olympus OMD EM5; 17th at 1.8%, Sony NEX7, 19th at 1.4%

Interesting times......

[Boris]

Do I care??? I most certainly don't. I have my ancient by modern standards mirrorless Ricoh GXR (both AF and Leica-M) modular camera system and it works flawlessly. Do I want to carry heavy DSLR (be it Pentax or any other brand for that matter?) - of course not, beside some rather rare situations when I need the DSLR advantages. So I voted with my wallet. Where would I want to upgrade? Full frame mirrorless or range finder, no more DSLR for me, thank you so much.

Naturally the standard disclaimer applies - I am just one customer of countless many.

[RobA_Oz]

It's interesting to see the polarisation created whenever someone makes an assertion about how mirrorless cameras are doing, or are predicted to do, in the general camera market. I think the best anyone can make of all this is that most people are expecting mirrorless cameras to do better than they actually are, which is a situation they've been in for some time now.

I suspect the main problem for makers of mirrorless ILCs is with convincing the majority of people who currently use DSLRs to change their perceptions that rear LCDs are only useful in some situations, and that EVFs are not big enough, true enough or fast enough yet to match an OVF. Perhaps a second-order problem is convincing people who have been brought up using digital point and shoot cameras (and now, increasingly, phone cameras, GoPros and the like) that there is a point to moving up to an ILC system.

As I've said before, once you've experienced a really good optical viewfinder, like the LX's, it's hard to see anything electronic matching it, but maybe there will be, someday. I'm not convinced EVFs are anywhere near there yet, not even against the smaller, dimmer APS-C viewfinders, let alone larger formats.

[Clavius]

I think the time this article was written predates the Sony A7(r) introduction. Either that, or it is just propaganda. The only doom and gloom with the A7 is that they're out of stock everywhere, due to unexpected high demand.

[RobA_Oz]

My local camera store is out of K-3 stock, too, due to unexpectedly high demand. It's a meaningless phrase without actual numbers to back it up, but no doubt one beloved of marketers.

[Clavius]

My local camera store is out of K-3 stock, too, due to unexpectedly high demand. It's a meaningless phrase without actual numbers to back it up, but no doubt one beloved of marketers.

And online articles written by selfproclaimed experts is absolute reality of course!? Even those "numbers", that have a reputation of being true and absolute, are completely warped. Consumer demand can be much higher then sales figures display.

All we can trust are our own findings. And my findings tell me that my K-3 is an above excellent machine. Same goes for my A7r. No surprise that they went out of stock that fast.

BTW, the article mentioning Sony as one of the SLR makers clearly indicates how up-to-date it really is.