CIPA tips slight shipment slip in 2023

Each year at about this time CIPA – the association representing the Japanese camera manufacturers – releases a review of camera and lens shipment over the previous 12 months, along with predictions about shipment levels for the current year.

 

Camera shipments 2022

Total shipments of digital cameras were 95.8 percent those of the previous–year (8,011,598 units), and the mainstay interchangeable–lens type cameras were at 110.8 percent. Interchangeable–lens cameras now account for nearly 3/4 or 74 percent of the total, with mirrorless interchangeable shipments now dominating DSLRs – at a ratio of bout 2:1. 

Although the market continued to expand significantly from 2000, it decreased in 2009 for the first time owing to the impact of the worldwide economic recession, decreased in 2011 owing to the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the flooding in Thailand, and then continued to decrease. Although it started to increase in 2017, it has fallen below the previous year’s level for five consecutive years since 2018. (It should be noted that the global shutdown provoked by the COVID pandemic has impacted three of those years.) 

While digital compact cameras accounted for the majority of all digital cameras shipped until 2017, the number has been decreasing ever since, ‘owing to the rise of more convenient smartphones’ according to CIPA.

Interchangeable lens shipments

Interchangeable lenses  were 101.9 percent of the previous year (9,727,978 units). There were about 1.6 lenses shipped for every interchangeable lens camera. 

Outlook for 2023