 |
| Photos taken using smartphones such as Apple's iPhone 4S have risen to 27 per cent of the total - as cameras fall to 44 per cent |
- Sales of compact cameras drop by 17 per cent
- Smartphones increase from 17 per cent to 27 per cent of photos in one year
- Larger-lensed SLR cameras up by 12 per cent
Pundits have been predicting the
death of slim point-and-shoot cameras for years, as
smartphones eat into
their market, and camera makers increasingly move towards SLR and other
larger-lensed models.
But
recent U.S. data from retail analysts NPD hints that the writing really
is on the wall for slim cameras. The percentage of photos taken on
smartphones such as Apple iPhone has gone from 17 per cent last year to
27 per cent this year, as their cameras increasingly match the
performance of dedicated compacts.
Sales of point-and-shoots dropped by 17 per cent in the same period.
The big losers are camcorders and cheaper point-and-shoot cameras said NPD's retail tracking service.
But the market for cameras as a whole is not about to die out.
Sales of SLRs and other detachable-lens cameras lens went up by 12 percent -
and the new larger lensed compacts championed by manufacturers such as
Sony and Panasonic grew 16 per cent.
'There
is no doubt that the smartphone is becoming ‘good enough’ much of the
time; but thanks to mobile phones, more pictures are being taken than
ever before,' said Liz Cutting, imaging analyst at NPD.
'Consumers
who use their mobile phones to take pictures and video were more likely
to do so instead of their camera when capturing spontaneous moments,
but for important events, single purpose cameras or camcorders are still
largely the device of choice.'
Pocket camcorders were down 13 per cent and memory-card camcorders went down eight per cent. 
0 comments:
Post a Comment