Last Updated on 12/13/2017 by Chris Gampat
Apple still reigns supreme on Flickr.
There is something to be said about the obvious lack of professional photographer’s presence on Flickr these days, but in terms of the broader photography market, there is still a lot of use of Flickr. This is what makes the company’s year-end reviews so interesting. It helps paint a picture about what cameras are being used and the top brands utilized by non-professionals around the world.
In their latest year-end review for 2017, the company indicated some continued gains by the smartphone market over the dedicated camera industry (DSLRs, Point and Shoots, Mirrorless). Let’s have a look at their analysis.
So, as you would have expected, the top device type used on Flickr is (as it has been for years now) the Smartphone, accounting for a full 50% of all uploads to the Flickr community. By comparison, that is a 2% increase over the 48% that smartphones made up in 2016. In 2017 DSLRs made up 33% of uploads, followed by 12% for point and shoot cameras while mirrorless held steady at 4% for the second year in a row.
This should not be all that surprising, though it is telling of how mirrorless cameras are not making much of a dent in the Flickr community. But then, this could be because most of those making the switch to mirrorless are in semi-pro or pro niches, and as we all know, Flickr is not as popular in those segments of the wider photography community as it was 10 years ago.
Apple again dominated the ‘top devices’ listing, accounting for 9 out of the top 10, with only Canon’s 5D Mark III at number 9, standing between Apple and top 10 dominance. In terms of brands, as you would expect, this list looked largely the same, with Apple at the top, followed by Canon, and then Nikon.
The photography community is always changing, and the industry is always shifting. That makes these year-end reviews so interesting because it gives us a snapshot of the year and a set of numbers and figures that we can use to see how the overall market is changing year over year. Flickr isn’t what it used to be, but these numbers are still pretty interesting to look at and note how they have changed over the years.
It will be interesting to see how these trends continue to unfold in 2018. You can find more of Flickr’s year-end review content over on the company’s blog, here.