If you were to summarize the camera market in 2023 with a few keywords, what would you give, out of stock, price increase, or retro, AI, global shutter, domestic lens, RED lawsuit?Maybe there will be controversy in the latter few, but the shortage and price increase will definitely be unanimously approved, what is happening in the camera market, and why are cameras still out of stock in 2023 under the overcapacity of many industries, resulting in ***
Stockouts and price increases are the norm.
On November 9, Fujifilm Japan's official website announced that it would raise the prices of more than 20 cameras and X-H2, X-H2S, X-T5, X-S, and X-S lenses, with an increase of 8-30%, and only a few new products were spared. The official reason given is that the cost of raw materials, manufacturing and logistics** is beyond the company's ability to digest. Compared with the price increase notices of Japanese brands during the epidemic, the biggest change is that the words "affected by the epidemic" are missing.
As a consumer electronic product, although digital cameras have certain tool attributes, the capacitors, power management chips, motors and other parts used in them are highly versatile. But at the end of the epidemic, many parts have recovered, and even substitutes have appeared, such as STM32 during the epidemic price increase to hundreds of yuan, and now not only to the original price, but even a large number of domestic substitutes.
During P&i2023, Kentaro Tamaki and Kentaro Tamaki, who are in charge of Panasonic's camera-related business, said in an interview that there is a shortage of parts for card cameras (fixed-lens digital cameras), and Panasonic will stop producing card cameras when it is unable to procure parts. In the past 10 years, the sales of digital cameras have been declining, reducing demand, and the crackdown in recent years, Japan's local camera supporting industry may be seriously impacted, and camera companies have not supported it, resulting in today's results.
On the other hand, camera companies, which have tasted the sweeteners of price increases over the past few years, are likely to believe that maintaining mild stockouts is a better way to maintain profits – Canon's camera sales fell by 02%, but the turnover is 4% higher than the same period in 20229%。Since it is more profitable to maintain the existing state, there is no need to spend money to support supporting industries, out of stock, price increases, ** is already the norm, the entry without mirrors will start at 5,000 yuan, a popular camera, lenses have to add money to buy, the profit is not high, and the card machine will even be gradually abandoned.
While there is a shortage of goods and price increases, newswitch (Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun) believes that the Chinese market has strongly stimulated the recovery of the camera market. It counts CIPA's data for the first nine months of 2023, with a total of 5.69 million cameras sold worldwide, down 06%, but the amount of sales has increased by 117%, reaching 525.3 billion yen, of which a total of 1.18 million cameras were sold to the Chinese market, which sold 1.45 million units in 2019. Correspondingly, shipments in the Japanese market were 2.31 million units in 2019, but decreased to 920,000 units in 2022Sales in the European market in 2022 decreased by 50% compared to 20193%, only 2.39 million units. In this regard, the CIPA staff said, "I heard that China's economy is cooling down, but the camera is performing well." Nikon's director and senior executive officer, Yosuke Tokunari, also said, "We are not feeling much of an impact from China's economic slowdown. ”
At the moment, CIPA has not released full-year 2023 camera sales figures, but from the available data, the best scenario for full-year shipments is only a small increase, because the recovery of the camera market has been hindered in the context of the global economic downturn. However, the sales amount is believed to increase a lot year-on-year, after all, the camera's ** is getting higher and higher.
Domestic lenses continue to develop.
At the same time that the Japanese system is rotten, the domestic lens is unexpectedly powerful - more brands have launched autofocus lenses, the specifications have been broken, and some unexpected technologies have been added. Because of Canon's first-party RF mount autofocus lens, the domestic autofocus lens represented by Weizhuos has long been famous all over the world, and in 2023, there will be a number of domestic brands - Lao Frog, Rock Star, Seven Craftsmen, Sirui, and Xingyao have launched autofocus lenses, plus the "old" brands are constantly expanding the automatic lens product line, and domestic lenses have inadvertently formed differentiated competition.
If we talk about the VITROS AF 23 33 56mm F1The 4 is a flat version of the Sigma Three Musketeers, the Nasirui Sniper 23 33 56mm F1The 2 Series is a transcendence, with an aperture of f1 across the entire series2. Sony E, Fujifilm X and Nikon Z multiple mounts are available at the same time. Of course, Vitros has not been idle, and has been expanding the PRO F1 in APS-C formatThe 2 series lenses were released not long ago with the AF 27mm F12 pro。
At the same time, Mingjiang grasped the retro with one hand and the cost performance with the other, and launched the AF35 56mm F18 lenses, providing APS-C mirrorless camera users with less than 1,000 dollars of F1The 8-aperture lens is quite a small spittoon and the essence of human optics when SLR cameras were popularized.
At the beginning of the outbreak of domestic lenses, Lao Frog was a very eye-catching manufacturer, especially the "Divine Whip", which provided a new shooting perspective for the majority of photography enthusiasts and professional users. However, in the morning when the lens automation process lagged behind the domestic lens of the same era, it launched a 10mm F28 ultra-wide-angle prime lenses.
Yongnuo is a very familiar flash brand for Chinese photography enthusiasts, in recent years it has been transforming, one is to launch the M43 camera for the live broadcast industry, the other is to vigorously develop the autofocus lens, initially "copycat" Nikon, Canon patent expired, now it is an original lens, this year brought the first domestic AF zoom lens YN 12-35mm F28-4 m as well as YN11mm f18s da dsm wl。Compared to prime lenses, zoom lenses are mechanically more complex, and in time they will be possible, YN 12-35mm f2The advent of the 8-4 m gave Yongnuo the "first" designation, but compared to the YN11mm F18S DA DSM WL is more creative.
A-B focusing camera lens is not a function, Tamron has already been realized, but the practicability is very poor - the A-B focusing function of the lens needs to be wired to connect to a PC or Android mobile phone, set with the corresponding software or APP, and call the A-B focusing function through the FN custom button on the lens, which cannot be operated off-camera, and it is easy to cause the picture to vibrate during operation. The Yongnuo practice is in the YN11mm F1The 8S DA DSM WL lens has a built-in Wi-Fi module and a standard remote control that allows users to focus A-B through the remote control, which solves the shortcomings of Tamron.
While seeing the progress of domestic lenses, we still have to see the shortcomings, the lack of zoom lenses, telephoto lenses, and the lack of optical image stabilization technology, the use of STM stepper motors, the need to overcome voice coil motors, and so on.
The rise of domestic lenses is only one aspect, Chinese brands in the gimbal camera, action camera, drone market has been in a leading position, although we can not know the sales volume of these products from the CIPA data, the sales amount, but the surviving brands can know how strong the Chinese brand - Sony RX0 series has been ignored, the action camera market is GoPro, DJI, insta360 three parts of the world, two of which are Chinese brands;Gimbal cameras are completely dominated by Chinese brands, and this year, DJI's launch of the 1-inch Osmo Pocket 3 has once again ignited consumers' enthusiasm for gimbal camerasNeedless to say, drones, Ukrainian and Russian users say yes.
Welcome to the Paris Olympics.
2024 is a big year for cameras, and now the 2024 European Football Championship will be held in Germany in June, which will last for a month, and soon after the ball game ends, the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics will follow, and more than 300 gold medals will be decided in just half a month, and the demand for professional-grade photographic equipment has surged.
In order to welcome the big year of sports, Canon, Sony, and Nikon Imperial have started to lay out in 2023, and Sony launched the A9 III mirrorless camera and FE 300mm F2 in NovemberThe 8 GM OSS lens, the first to introduce global shutter technology to a professional camera, is capable of capturing images without jelly effect, FE 300mm f/28 gm OSS to 1470g, compared to the traditional 70-200mm f28. The lenses are similar, which greatly improves flexibility and reduces burden.
Back in April, Canon launched the RF100-300mm F28 L IS USM lenses, and recently released the RF24-105mm F2., which redefines the big ternary8 L is USM Z, which achieves a seamless 15mm-300mm focal length on the RF mount F28 large apertures. As for Nikon, there are not many new products in 2023 that are closely related to the Olympic Games, but there is currently news that Nikon may launch the A9 III version of the Z9H, or provide a chicken version of the firmware for the Z9, but everything needs to be confirmed.
Headphones: Technology slows down and forms are new.
When it comes to the audio market, what is the first thing that comes to your mind, I believe that most people are TWS true wireless Bluetooth headphones. Driven by Apple's AirPods, true wireless earbuds have been rapidly popularized in the past few years, and ** have repeatedly hit new lows, but rapid development means that they will soon encounter bottlenecks - as the inventor of noise-canceling headphones, Bose launched two QuietComfort Ultra noise-cancelling earbuds this year Headphones use Qualcomm chips, true wireless earphones, noise-canceling headphones may be difficult to make a breakthrough in technology in a short period of time.
But stagnation in technology doesn't mean slowing down, because the headphone market has a new direction – open-back headphones. In the past few years, Sony and Shokin have targeted this market, among which Shokin has focused on the sports market and has been a great success, which also shows the strong demand for open-back headphones in the market, so in 2023, there will be more new products, and the competition will be fierce, Sony has launched Float Run, Huawei will launch Freeclip, Cleer, Shokin, and Oladance have become popular with bayonets.
Epilogue. In an interview with Canon executives in 2022, they pointed out that the camera market has basically bottomed out and will resume growth. However, in 2023, the global economic form is not good, and the camera market is more of a stable period, and it is difficult for sales to surge in a short period of time. In 2024, it is still a big year for competitive sports, and if nothing else, CNS Yusan's new products and production capacity will give priority to professional-grade photographic equipment, so the opportunity will continue to be the best and the supply will be tight. However, with the rapid development of domestic photographic equipment, it is hoped to break the camera market firmly controlled by Japanese brands and bring some new atmosphere.
In the audio market, true wireless earbuds have encountered a bottleneck at the technical level, consumers can pay more attention to open-frame in-ear earphones, and Huawei's entry into the market is expected to drive other mobile phone brands to follow up and usher in great development.