Digital mirrorless cameras look for popularity
Sales are growing for digital mirrorless single-lens cameras, because of their advanced video recording capabilities, ideal for posting to social media sites.
The average unit price has risen in line with increased functionality, and it is an open question whether their sales will stay strong.
Major manufacturers displayed cameras with video recording functions over the four days of the nation's largest camera exhibition, CP 2023, in Yokohama in late February.
Canon's EOS R 6 Mark II features an enhanced subject detection function. It can quickly focus on a subject that is in motion, whether it is recording a video or taking a picture.
The camera's base of video users is expanding, and it is natural to make it easier to use, said Go Tokura, Canon Managing Executive Officer.
Sony Corp. offers enhanced subject recognition with Artificial Intelligence on its 7 R V. The camera can record high-definition 8 K video and capture smooth images.
Nikon Corp. s Z 30 is light and comes in at around 500 grams. It is easy to carry and can shoot up to 125 minutes at a time.
In response to the growing number of consumers posting videos to social media, companies are upgrading their video capabilities in response to the growing number of people who feel their phone cameras are insufficient for the task.
As smartphones have become more popular, it has driven consumers to take better photos and videos into the digital camera market, as an official of the Camera Imaging Products Association said. In the digital camera market, mirrorless single-lens cameras, which are smaller and lighter, are now playing a leading role, having dethroned the long-dominant single-lens reflex SLR camera.
The association stated that mirrorless single-lens cameras overtook SLRs in terms of shipment value in 2019 and shipment volume in 2020, with a 61.3% year-on-year increase in volume and a 31.1% year-on-year increase in volume in 2022.
The growth in value was greater than the growth in units because the average unit price has gone up along with the increase in functionality.
The average unit price for mirrorless single-lens cameras, which was about 31,000 in 2012, has surpassed that of SLR cameras at about 44,600 price point in 2015. Since then, the price for mirrorless cameras has been rising steadily, reaching around 128,500 in 2022.
With such a steep rise in prices, there is a chance that consumers will turn their attention elsewhere.
Ichiro Michikoshi, chief executive analyst at research firm BCN Inc., believes that the trend toward high-performance and high-priced mirrorless single-lens cameras will continue for some time. If prices rise too high, inexpensive products for the general public may become more popular.