Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/11/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Nikon's Japan website, downloadable as a pdf file, is the "Nikon Fact Book 2000." While most of it is, as would be expected, Nikon-related, there are some interesting general camera figures within it. One chart shows total SLR sales from 1995 to 1999. These are sales for all companies, not just Nikon (figures from the Japan Camera Industry Association): 1995: 3,390,000 1996: 3,530,000 1997: 4,100,000 1998: 4,290,000 1999: 4,360,000 The chart shows Nikon's 1999 share as 20.9%. That would work out to 911,240 Nikon SLRs sold in 1999. And Leica sold, what, 5000 to 6000 R8s? A sobering comparison. Interestingly, Leica's financial reports explain the R8's sales problems in part by saying (paraphrasing here; I don't have a pdf of a Leica report in front of me) that it's part of a declining market. Yet these figures show SLR sales increasing by a million units over the past five years. Also interesting to look at are the sales of compact cameras, up since 1995 but down by over two million units compared to last year: 1995: 26,130,000 1996: 25,380,000 1997: 32,510,000 1998: 31,650,000 1999: 29,460,000 (Nikon's 1999 share of that market is 6.1%.) The report also includes sales of digital cameras since 1997, including forecasts for 2000 and 2001: 1997: 2,120,000 1998: 3,170,000 1999: 5,090,000 2000 (forecast): 9,100,000 2001 (forecast): 12,000,000 (Nikon's 1999 share of the digital market was 6.4%.) Another breakout is shipment of digital cameras by pixel count for the last two years: 1998 Less than one million pixels: 1,860,000 One million pixels and more: 1,310,000 1999 Less than one million pixels: 1,130,000 One to two million pixels: 2,310,000 Over two million pixels: 1,650,000