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| An illustration in Sony’s financial documents that shows how its Digital Imaging Business is positioned. |
In a recent conference call with investors and analysts, Sony broke down the numbers and statistics of its digital imaging business for the 2018 fiscal year (FY2018). While there’s plenty of interesting tidbits to pull out, the most significant is that Sony is now reporting it has 24 percent of the global still camera market based on revenue, an increase in four percent compared to FY2017.
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| Sony’s global market share, based on revenue, from its FY2017 report. |
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| Sony’s global market share, based on revenue, from its FY2018 report. |
According to Sony’s report, its interchangeable lens camera (ILC) market share increased from 19 percent in FY2017 to 23 percent in FY2018, moving them to second place behind Canon and ahead of Nikon. Meanwhile, its compact camera market share increased from 26 percent in FY2017 to 29 percent in FY2018, moving them to the number one spot globally.
Despite Sony’s increase in the global market share, based on revenue, Sony’s report shows the still camera market as a whole decreased from ¥1,400 billion to ¥1,300 billion, a drop of 7.1 percent. Interestingly, this decrease is identical to the 7.1% drop in global digital camera unit sales according to the most recent report from the Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA).
Moving away from still images, Sony also reported that while its global market share in the video camera market remained at 29 percent, the overall market size, in revenue, dropped dramatically from ¥390 billion to ¥300 billion, a massive decrease of 23 percent.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)