The full 2022 calendar year data on production and shipments of digital cameras and lenses has been published by the Japanese camera trade association, CIPA and show an improvement over 2021.
While total shipments – compacts and interchangeables – were four percent under 2021 in numbers of cameras, the value of those cameras was a whopping 39 percent higher. Even taking global inflation into account, this seems like a pleasing result.
Digital compacts continue to wallow, down by close to a third on the previous year, although the increased average price per camera almost accounts for the drop in units.
Mirrorless interchangeables continues to be the growth area for cameras, with a year-on-year increase of 31 percent, and a 61 percent increase in the value of those cameras.
In 2022 there were more than two mirrorless cameras shipped for every DSLR. But the value of the mirrorless interchangeable segment is six times the value of the DSLR segment. Put another way, a mirrorless camera is, on average, three times the value of a DSLR. As noted in our story on Photo Review‘s annual reader survey, this indicates that relatively inexpensive DSLR kits are the ‘digital Zenits’ – a low cost way of getting into enthusiast photography. As such, the DSLR market is probably more valuable over the long term than the data implies.
Lenses, although shipments were disappointing in December, also enjoyed a small uptick compared to 2021 – up 2 percent – but the value of those shipments was up 29 percent.
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