Originally posted by Rondec I wouldn't say that people totally leave ILCs for smartphones, but there are an awful lot of people who now only use ILCs in situations where they think they will benefit them (kid's sporting events, low light situations) and the rest of the time use their cell phones. Certainly when I am out and about I see a lot of people taking photos but very few ILCs. When I do see ILCs they are invariably a couple of generations old SLR. I think Asia is probably different, but the US is still SLR-centric.
I'm not sure what all of this means except that I think the market is going to continue to slow for both SLRs and MILCs, which could be problematic for Canon and Nikon in the midst of launching new mounts and lens systems.
Smartphones have made digital photography accessible for almost everyone, since even the cheaper phones have half-decent cameras these days. And whilst many of us might consider them too limited both in features and image quality, they're "good enough" for lots of folks, and those people probably won't move on to SLR or mirrorless cameras. Then again, phones are even more prolific than compacts were, since even those who have zero interest in photography get a camera with their phone - and some of them will go on to develop an interest, either out of curiosity or so they can contribute to social media within their peer groups. More smartphones and more folks taking photos
should, I think, bode quite well for the DSLR and mirrorless market in the medium term - because a minority of phone users will make photography their hobby (perhaps, even, their profession) and will want more than a phone camera can offer. Of course, longer term, we'll still get to a point of almost total saturation...
I wonder if smartphone sales will begin to tail off in the same way interchangeable lens cameras are? Or maybe this is already happening? Certainly, there are members of my family who used to upgrade to each new iPhone, but are now keeping them for longer and missing one or two generations of phone simply because of the cost - and the fact that their existing phones are "good enough"...