Camera Sales Take Massive Hit, Dropping 64% in March

The COVID-19 pandemic is proving one of the greatest economic challenges many industries have faced in quite some time.

And none of this is easy for camera sales which were struggling during the good years since the 2008 financial crisis. Now they’re absolutely plummeting and analysts are scrambling to figure out whether or not this is a one-time thing or if the bottom has truly dropped out in the consumer camera market.

PetaPixel reports numbers from Stackline Infographic that shows cameras as the third-biggest loser in consumer goods, coming in after “Luggages and Suitcases” and “Briefcases” respectively.

That’s also where the question is: Because so many of the biggest drops on Stackline’s graphic are products that could be linked to travel in one way or another, it’s hard to tell if this is a permanent trend for cameras or just a blip on the radar.

A report from BCN about the Japanese market shows a similar fall with a 50% drop being reported between March of 2019 and this year.

If you’ve read this blog for a while, none of this is news to you really. We’ve blamed a lot of the decline on the rise of smartphones and how powerful and accessible they are becoming. But this report might be talking about another trend entirely.

What do you think of the massive drop in camera sales? Primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic or part of the broader downtrend we’ve seen over the past several years? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below if you like.

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[PetaPixel]