Reports from Japan about the demise of point-and-shoot compact cameras are looking at the issue through a narrow lens.
Coolpix, Cyber-shot, PowerShot, Exilim; these compact camera sub-brands all now sound like they’re from a bygone era. And their demise has been all-but-confirmed by a new report from Japan that most major camera manufacturers, including Nikon, Sony, and Canon, are now dramatically scaling back their point-and-shoot camera offerings, if not abandoning them entirely.
The Japanese business newspaper Nikkei (opens in new tab) spoke to all of the former giants of pocketable cameras for its report, picked up by Petapixel (opens in new tab), which concludes that the « major camera companies » have « stopped developing new compact digital cameras » in order to concentrate on « mirrorless cameras with high unit prices. »
Unless you’ve just woken up from a cryogenic sleep that started in 2006, this won’t come as shocking news. Smartphones have become so good, and so much better than most compact cameras, that for many the idea of owning a separate photographic tool now seems about as quaint as carrying a Walkman.
But despite the emphatic conclusions of the CIPA (Camera Imaging & Products Association) data in Nikkei’s report, which shows that compact digital camera shipments have fallen 97% since 2008, there is evidence that the point-and-shoot camera is still very much alive and even evolving. It just won’t have a Nikon Coolpix or Sony Cyber-shot badge on the front.
The surprising thing about CIPA’s data (opens in new tab) is that compact digital cameras still accounted for 36% of global camera shipments last year. So where will all these people go if the camera giants do stop developing new compact models?
To be fair, not all of the companies Nikkei spoke to said they were immediately ejecting from the point-and-shoot cockpit.
