Last Updated on 12/30/2013 by Chris Gampat
Ready for the ultimate fanboy troll battle?
According to a recent Reuters article, the Credit Suisse states that only Canon, Nikon and Sony will be able to survive the current economic conditions. In particular, the article goes after Panasonic, Fujifilm and Olympus–two of which are companies that have been pushing the innovation channel quite a bit. To boot, the report also states that after years of not being profitable the Panasonic Imaging Division may be facing the axe if they aren’t profitable by March of 2016. But to make this even more of a punch in the face, Panasonic also just sold off 51% of its imaging division. Then you consider all of the scandal issues that Olympus has had and you’ve got two players licking their wounds.
All three of these camera manufacturers make mirrorless cameras, which have caught on a lot in Japan but not in the US and Europe. Indeed, lots of people go for a DSLR for the professional look of the camera without knowing a single thing about how awesome mirrorless cameras really are.
What’s caused such a big decline in the imaging market is the fact that smartphones have become just so damn good at taking photos mixed with the convenience of sharing immediately. In fact, manufacturers often admit this in meetings with the press–and this is why Sony came out with the QX series of cameras. To that end, the camera industry didn’t really grow overall this year either. That begs the question of why compact cameras are even made any more despite the sales loss. And overall, we believe that the camera will need to be made into a lusty, luxury item again to survive.
Via the NYTimes