Canon has offered up a dire prediction about the future of digital camera sales and it has also discussed how it plans on grappling with that forecast as a company.
When talking about the future of digital camera sales, Canon says they think that they will be about 8.2% of what they were in 2010 or a total market of about 10 million units. And you thought the market was in freefall now. According to this prediction, it’s about to get much worse.
The predictions come as part of an interview Toyo Keizai conducted with Canon’s General Manager of the Image Communication Business Division, Takeshi Tokura. In that interview, the Canon GM details how the company plans on trimming the fat and eliminating product lines, development, and so on in order to keep the camera division lean and competitive in this new, smaller market.
As PetaPixel details, the market ten years ago or so was 121.5 million units sold annually. That is expected to drop to the aforementioned 10 million or so. In terms of collapse, that’s quite total and the numbers really do underline the massive changes that have roiled the industry over just ten years. The Canon brass further detailed the company’s plans to focus on interchangeable lens cameras, a growth market, as well as video equipment in this realigned market.
“We will increase functions and services, including entry-level as well as increase the added value to those products…It is too narrow a view to focus solely on the production of interchangeable lens cameras,” Tokura remarks in the Toyo Keizai interview.
This isn't the only discussion about Canon and the future we've had lately. If you missed our article about Canon potentially releasing an AI-powered product, you can check that out here.
What do you think of Canon’s predictions for a much reduced digital camera market in the near future? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below if you like.
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