The camera market share is very narrow, with the top three leading manufacturers (Canon, Sony, and Nikon) accounting for 85% of unit shipments.
Global camera shipments totaled 8.85 million units in 2021, which is 40.3% less compared to 2020.
This market is dominated by five large camera manufacturers: Canon, Sony, Nikon, FUJIFILM, and Panasonic. The market share of these 5 players is calculated as 93.8% of the global camera market share in 2021, which includes all kinds of digital cameras from compact cameras to DSLRs to mirrorless cameras.
The rest 6.2% is owned by multiple small brands including OM SYSTEM, Hasselblad, Pentax, and others.
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Canon takes the top spot in the camera industry, holding a 47.9% share of the global camera market, which is slightly greater than the combined shares of Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm, and Panasonic (i.e., 45.8%). The fresh data reveals that Canon owns almost half of the global camera market and Sony owns almost a quarter.
According to the Japanese outlet Nikkei, the total number of units shipped was 8,850,000 in 2021, however, the figures were 14,830,000 in 2020. The trend of the market is fascinating to camera gear lovers. An ongoing decreasing trend can be observed in the past years.
The downfall of the camera industry is no secret. The shipments fell down from 120 million units in 2010 to a shocking 8.85 million units in 2020.
Canon’s market share climbed by 2.5%, compared to last year. The total number of units sold by Canon is calculated as 4.24 million with an estimated revenue of $31.972B, a 7.63% increase from the previous year.
Sony’s share lifted by 1.9% with 1.96 million units sold. Sony’s annual revenue for 2021 was $84.594B, an 11.32% increase from the last year.
Nikon is moving in decline in terms of market share. It dropped to 13.7% from 18.6%, an year-on-year decrease is 4.9%. I believe this decline is because of Nikon’s late start of mirrorless cameras. Sony has captured a lot of potential market share because of the advancement in technology at the right time.
Molly at Camera Prism estimated that FUJIFILM and Panasonic have seen a combined growth of 0.6%.
The keynote is that Canon, Sony, and FUJIFILM all saw growth. On the other hand, Nikon and Panasonic saw a bad decline in their market shares.
However, the top 5 and the estimated market share, are shown in the table below:
| Position | Brand | Market Share 2020 | Market Share 2021 | Change |
| 1 | Canon | 45.4% | 47.9% | ↑ 3.5% |
| 2 | Sony | 20.2% | 22.1% | ↑ 1.9% |
| 3 | Nikon | 18.6% | 13.7% | ↓ 4.9% |
| 4 | FUJIFILM | 4.7% | 5.6% | ↑ 0.9% |
| 5 | Panasonic | 4.7% | 4.4% | ↓ 0.3% |
Sony overtakes Canon in the mirrorless camera market
Sony holds the most market shares for mirrorless cameras than Canon in the Japanese market. Despite the fact that Sony hasn’t released a new camera since the Sony A7 IV in October 2021 while Canon has made some recent releases, still failed to crack the top position in market share.
Note: Most of the figures are from 2021 as there exist only a few forecasts on what this year will look like for camera manufacturers.