Financial report shows Canon’s sales are on a downward trend

Canon’s made a big deal over the last few years about hitting that >50% market share. While Canon has been making some great strides since dumping EF mount and switching to mirrorless, it looks like the company might have peaked.

According to Canon’s financial report from April to June 2024, sales have decreased every quarter for the past year compared to the previous period. Q3 and Q4 2023, as well as Q1 and Q2 2024, are all down compared to the year before.

What happened?

Camera sales were pretty strong for Canon at the beginning of 2023. Sales for the first quarter shows an increase of 29% for both Q1 and Q2 2023 over Q1 and Q2 2022. This leap at the beginning of 2023 wasn’t much of a surprise, though.

At the end of 2022, Canon released the EOS R6 Mark II. In Q1 2023, the company announced the Canon EOS RP replacement, the Canon EOS R8, and the very popular entry-level EOS R50. Then there was the EOS R100 in Q2 2023. These bodies between them will have accounted for a significant amount of sales.

Since then, however, we haven’t seen much from Canon at all until the recent EOS R1 and EOS R5 Mark II announcements. These may not be enough to produce a dramatic increase in sales. While the EOS R1 is impressive, it’s not going to be that much better for most people than the slightly less expensive EOS R3.

I have little doubt that the Canon EOS R5 Mark II, on the other hand, will prove to be quite popular. But it’s a camera that’s only going to really appeal to professionals and advanced enthusiasts. This is a fairly large market, but not as large as average consumers looking to switch up from their phone.

Will this downward trend continue?

One factor that I haven’t really mentioned so far has been the competition. Since the beginning of 2023, Sony has released the A7R V, ZV-E1, A6700, A7CR, A7C II, A9 III, and ZV-E10 II. These have all proven to be very popular cameras, with the Sony A9 III being the first mirrorless camera to feature a global shutter CMOS sensor.

Interestingly, out of “the big three”, Nikon has released only three cameras since the beginning of 2023. May 2023 brought us the extremely popular Nikon Z8. This, along with 2022’s Nikon Z9, was Nikon saying “Hey, we’re back, and we’re ready to compete again”. 2023 also brought us the Nikon Zf, and recently, they launched the Z6 III.

The one sleeper company over the next couple of years might actually be Panasonic. Or, perhaps Panasonic and Sigma combined. Panasonic’s recent discovery of Phase Detect Autofocus in the S5 II, also released in 2023, holds a lot of promise for the future.

With PDAF now in a Panasonic body, the Panasonic G9 II became one of Panasonic’s most anticipated cameras. Now we’ve got the Panasonic GH7, as well. Now, this isn’t a lot of cameras, but pretty much the entirety of Panasonic’s non-PDAF mirrorless lineup is about due for a refresh.

So, we may see a flurry of them come over the next year or two. And if Sigma ever figures out how to deliver a full-frame Foveon camera, then L mount could potentially hit into sales from Canon, Sony, and Nikon.

Canon still leads market share – for now

Canon isn’t exactly in trouble. But their sales are declining, and so is their market share. A recent report shows that Canon holds a 41.2% market share with Sony in second place at 32.1%. Nikon still remains pretty low at 13.2% but this is an increase on previous years.

This is a number that Nikon will want to increase further, and their recent acquisition of RED will almost certainly help with that. Nikon has said that it wants to start incorporating RED tech into future Nikon Z mirrorless cameras. After all, you don’t make an $85,000,000 investment unless you expect it to bring in a return.

I don’t see Nikon wiping the board any time soon, but I think it’s a petty safe bet that Nikon will be eating into Canon and Sony’s market shares over the next couple of years, even if only by a little.

The big competition will be between Canon and Sony. Both companies tend to keep their cards pretty close to the chest, so what their response to Nikon and each other will be over the next couple of years is anyone’s guess. We can speculate, but until we see official announcements, anything could happen.

The market share lineup might look very different a few years from now. But I don’t think Canon’s going to hit that 50% market share any time soon.

[via DCLife]