Saturday, February 21, 2015

Compact Cameras With Sub Rs 10,000 Enjoy Over 40% Share

The last decade saw a mass emergence of amateur photographers, thanks to the market that's flooded with affordable cameras with user-friendly image capturing technology. Usually, people want to try their hands on the low priced cameras and once the comfort level rises, they upgrade to the higher versions.

Few years ago, the entry level cameras used to come with 10 mega pixels. Now, the entry segment has got at least 16.1 mega pixels. As and when technology is developed, the price of the cameras reduces. Hence, it is expected that in coming years, the entry level cameras might have almost DSLR kind of features. But that may take some time. Hope that camera makers fulfill our dreams.

In addition, it was seen that in the last one year, the cameras in the price range of Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 were easy to carry and very user-friendly, and enjoyed the highest share in the total sales the cameras. Compact cameras in this price range enjoyed about 40% share of the total sales of cameras.

Usually, in this price range, the cameras have 16 to 20 mega pixels, which varies from brand to brand and features. All major brands offer cameras in this price range.

Camera Sales (Price-wise)

The Cyber-shot series by Sony is the most popular among compact cameras. It seems, no one can beat Sony in as far as compact cameras are concerned. The second largest compact camera selling brand in India is Nikon. While in DSLR, Nikon and Canon top the chart. However, cameras from Panasonic and Fujifilm also have about a double digit share of the total sales.

Despite mobile phones consuming a large part of camera sales, the demand for compact cameras is increasing and so are their sales. However, only the DSLRs priced Rs. 35,000 and more, are picking up sales in double digits, because they come with special lenses and features. Their price is a tad higher than the affordable ones and so the profit share of DSLR or SLR cameras is below 10% when it comes to online segment.

On the other side, cameras in price range of up to Rs. 5,000 are the second largest in the total sales. This price range has over 30% more shares. Cameras priced at Rs. 4,000 and Rs. 9,999, together have a share of over 70% in the total online sales in the country.

In the subcategory of Rs. 5,000, the cameras have less features. Nonetheless, now even the basic cameras have at least 16.1 mega pixels with 5x optical zoom.

Category-wise, overall compact cameras have a share of over 80%. The second largest category is DSLR, followed by camcorders and mirror-less cameras.