This Latest Camera Sales Chart Shows the Compact Camera Near Death
Things aren’t looking good for the standalone point-and-shoot camera. As smartphone cameras continue to improve, compact camera sales continue to nosedive. A new historical sales chart with 2016 figures shows just how quickly point-and-shoots are dying off.
Want to see why compact camera sales have been plummeting? Take a look at what the full updated chart looks like when smartphone sales are fully displayed:
Here’s a smaller version of the same image to give you a better idea of how the volumes compare:
“In a nutshell, photography is more popular than it has ever been – take a look at the rise of Instagram or Snapchat, for example,” Skafisk tells PetaPixel. “But literally 98.4% of the consumer cameras sold in 2016 were built into smartphones – only 0.8% were compacts, 0.5% DSLRs, and 0.2% mirrorless.”
“Where will we go from here? An easy prediction is that smartphones will continue to get better, and compact camera sales will go to near-zero,” he continues. “There will always be people interested in larger, more ‘serious’ cameras, and the camera companies that listen to these people and meet their needs will be fine.”