[RobA_Oz]

Usually October is the best month of the year (the second best is April) and from there onwards to January/February sales will drop as much as half.

Recent Data from last year:


And then the long term view:

The trend lines in the long term view tell the most interesting story. MILC shipments have barely moved outside the range they’ve been operating in for the past seven years, even with the new entries from Nikon and Canon, while DSLR shipments have fallen to around the same level as MILCs, but those appear to have flattened out.

Canon and Nikon have had to invest in new and/or modified tooling for their new MILC models, so Sony can probably afford to wage a price war on them, if it so chooses, and cause the others to lower their RoI, most likely whether they respond in kind or not. Interesting times.

[Rondec]

The trend lines in the long term view tell the most interesting story. MILC shipments have barely moved outside the range they’ve been operating in for the past seven years, even with the new entries from Nikon and Canon, while DSLR shipments have fallen to around the same level as MILCs, but those appear to have flattened out.

Canon and Nikon have had to invest in new and/or modified tooling for their new MILC models, so Sony can probably afford to wage a price war on them, if it so chooses, and cause the others to lower their RoI, most likely whether they respond in kind or not. Interesting times.

It is really amazing how many models Sony has for sale. I can't keep track of them all. On B and H they have listed A7 III, A7 II, A7r III, A7r II, A7r IV, A7s, A7s II, A9, and A9 II. And that's just full frame models. It wouldn't be surprising if they have a decent share of the full frame market, but I wonder if having so many models is good for them long term.

Their strategy seems to be to keep older models around for a long time and just discount them pretty deeply. So the original A9 is now only 3500 dollars compared to the A9 II, which is 4500 dollars. But I sort of wonder if the original A9 won't steal sales from the A9 II. But I suppose they know what they're doing...

[biz-engineer]

It is really amazing how many models Sony has for sale. I can't keep track of them all. On B and H they have listed A7 III, A7 II, A7r III, A7r II, A7r IV, A7s, A7s II, A9, and A9 II.

None of them have decent ergonimics for me, it feel like at those price it's a shame, and we should block sales of Sony cameras (and others) until they offer high quality products matching the price they charge for it. How much does it cost to design a camera body that fit in the hand and that has high quality buttons and materials, for 2K or 3K they should be making an effort, even a $200 phone is more refined than a Sony camera that looks like a brick.

[Rondec]

None of them have decent ergonimics for me, it feel like at those price it's a shame, and we should block sales of Sony cameras (and others) until they offer high quality products matching the price they charge for it. How much does it cost to design a camera body that fit in the hand and that has high quality buttons and materials, for 2K or 3K they should be making an effort, even a $200 phone is more refined than a Sony camera that looks like a brick.

Maybe that's the killer feature they finally bring out in 2050...

[RGlasel]

Their strategy seems to be to keep older models around for a long time and just discount them pretty deeply.

The camera business seems to have very slow inventory turnover compared to other electronic products and since Sony tries to reduce manufacturing complexity by modularizing their cameras, I suspect that the proliferation of models is because of unsold stock at distributors and retailers, but I have no way to confirm those suspicions. In order to get Sony's customers to order inventory in new models, they need to offer incentives to sell out superceded models and free up working capital.

A portion of the market wants the newest features and is willing to pay for it, which means Sony can put a higher initial price on their cameras, but they can't substantially reduce the price of the most recent models until there is something newer to replace it, otherwise customers will just wait for prices to come down and production has to come to a halt (which really drives up manufacturing costs). As long as Sony maintains its share of the MILC market and that market is stable (or growing) and new models have attractive enough new features to justify a price premium, this strategy can work.

[Rondec]

The camera business seems to have very slow inventory turnover compared to other electronic products and since Sony tries to reduce manufacturing complexity by modularizing their cameras, I suspect that the proliferation of models is because of unsold stock at distributors and retailers, but I have no way to confirm those suspicions. In order to get Sony's customers to order inventory in new models, they need to offer incentives to sell out superceded models and free up working capital.

A portion of the market wants the newest features and is willing to pay for it, which means Sony can put a higher initial price on their cameras, but they can't substantially reduce the price of the most recent models until there is something newer to replace it, otherwise customers will just wait for prices to come down and production has to come to a halt (which really drives up manufacturing costs). As long as Sony maintains its share of the MILC market and that market is stable (or growing) and new models have attractive enough new features to justify a price premium, this strategy can work.

Sure. Cameras shipped does not equal cameras sold. If Ricoh decided to ship a million KP cameras tomorrow, they would probably just sit on store shelves.

I just can't imagine if car dealerships worked that way and you could walk in and buy a 2016 model, brand new, for 25 percent less than the 2019 model. But as I said before, I'm not a marketing or sales person so, maybe it is better that way.

[RGlasel]

you could walk in and buy a 2016 model, brand new, for 25 percent less than the 2019 model.

A car dealership would never let that happen (letting a new vehicle sit on the lot for 36 months), typically they start paying interest on inventory after 3 months. Car manufacturers pay for the big discounts offered on the previous model when new models come out (so that dealerships order the new model), but if a new vehicle is sitting on the lot for a year, the dealer will be offering at least a 25% discount to get it off the lot. If that doesn't work (which normally only happens because the sales manager screwed up and ordered an unsaleable vehicle or agreed to take a dog in order to get a better allocation of high demand models), it will be auctioned off.

[bobmaxja]

If somebody can look at older model Sony sold and look at manufacturing date, you will have the answer!

[automorphism]

Well certainly mirrorless technology is not yet translating into lower camera prices, so it would seem to be a case of the market segment they are targeting is willing to pay.

I think this is false. The Canon 5DIV has the lowest discount on BH that I've ever seen. Also, I monitor eBay frequently and I believe the price of many DSLRs is going down also.

Personally when it comes to mirrorless or DSLR, I don't care. I am using a few DSLRs at the moment because...they still work. I use Pentax, Nikon, and sometimes Olympus. For Nikon, I prefer the F mount over the Z simply because for wildlife their DSLRs have at least as good/better AF and handling and far more lenses in the telephoto range (there is nothing like a 300mm pf or a 500mm pf in the mirrorless world).


When it comes time to replace my cameras (when they break), if there are no more DSLRs left, I'll just buy mirrorless and I am sure I will still get the shot. Not a big deal.

[Mistral75]

CIPA, the Japanese Camera & Imaging Products Association, published today production and shipment data for the month of November and for the first eleven months of 2019.

More mirrorless cameras than DSLRs were shipped in November for the second month in a row. (Remember that, expressed in JP¥, shipments of mirrorless cameras have surpassed DSLR shipments since September 2018).

• DSLRs shipped in November 2019: 365,723 units totalling ¥14.4bn
• Mirrorless cameras shipped in November 2019: 453,228 units totalling ¥31.8bn

Source: http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201911_e.pdf (see also http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/s-201911_e.pdf for lens production and shipment).

In October the shipments expressed in unit were split 49% DSLR / 51% mirrorless, in November they were 45% / 55%. In comparison to the former month, shipments of mirrorless cameras went up in units and JP¥, DSLR shipments went down in units and JP¥.

[James also]

Let us hope that the reason that Mirrorless sales are relatively high is because all those who want a DSLR are waiting for the new Pentax APSC Flagship.

With a nice lens or two of course.

[Kunzite]

As for the earlier results - no new DSLR, nothing to upgrade to. Only Canon launched the 90D, last year.
I doubt those interested in higher end MILCs will keep updating frequently.

[RGlasel]

• DSLRs shipped in November 2019: 365,723 units totalling ¥14.4bn
• Mirrorless cameras shipped in November 2019: 453,228 units totalling ¥31.8bn

The per unit value of mirrorless shipments is slightly lower in November than for Jan-Nov (¥70,161 vs. ¥71,866) and it changed slightly in the other direction for DSLRs (¥39,407 vs. ¥38,706). In 2012 (the first year mirrorless was shown separately) it was ¥31,251 for mirrorless and ¥39,058 for DSLRs.

There is an interesting (to me anyway) divergance between Japan and the rest of the world in these statistics. Jan-Nov globally, in units the DSLR/MILC split was 54:46 in favour of DSLRs (value in JP¥ the split was similar, but in the opposite direction). In Japan, the split was 66:34 in favour of MILCs (and for Nov. '19 only, it was 77:23!). In Japan it appears that you have to pay people to take a DSLR. In the Americas, DSLRs lead 63:37 for Jan-Nov., even though DSLR shipments are -33% compared to the same period last year (and MILCs are +8%). Japan is also the only place where compact/fixed lens cameras still outsell (in units) interchangeable lens cameras by a significant margin. Jan-Nov the ratio is 64:36 in Japan, outside Japan the ratio is 41:59.

Total digital camera market has dropped 19% in value, 22% in units worldwide compared to Jan-Nov of 2018. To give some perspective, total digital camera units shipments Jan-Nov 2019 is 14,169,969, in 2010 it was 112,897,411. In other words, the digital camera industry in 2019 has fewer than 13% of the customers it had in 2010. DSLR shipments Jan-Nov 2012 were 15,084,155, so more than the entire digital camera shipments for 2019. The per unit value of ILCs has gone up by 30% since 2012, but total value of ILC shipments has dropped 40% (only the manufacturers know what trends their costs have followed, but it seems likely that most of the increased per unit value has been eaten up by higher per unit costs for a much smaller production volume).

For an industry dependent on new models with new features to sell new products (because the old ones don't wear out very fast), this is nothing but bad news.

[Mistral75]

As for the earlier results - no new DSLR, nothing to upgrade to. Only Canon launched the 90D, last year.
I doubt those interested in higher end MILCs will keep updating frequently.

Not only the 90D (in August) but also the EOS Rebel SL3 / EOS 250D / EOS Kiss X10 (in April).

I presume Canon pumping entry-level DSLRs into distribution channels is one of the reasons, if not the main one, for the decrease in the average shipment price of DSLRs.

[Kunzite]

Not only the 90D (in August) but also the EOS Rebel SL3 / EOS 250D / EOS Kiss X10 (in April).

Oh, right - those are puny releases so I didn't even see them. I guess the market didn't either