I know Sony didn't.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Gwinn
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 11:22 AM
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [OM] US Sales of digital cameras in 2003 Q3
At 12:08 AM +0000 1/4/04, olympus-digest wrote:
>Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 15:39:34 -0500
>From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: [OM] US Sales of digital cameras in 2003 Q3
>
>What I'd like to know is what the position of each of these companies
>was five years ago, re film camera sales. My guess is that based on
>that, the two big winners would be Sony and HP - which weren't players
>at all - and the BIG loser would be Kodak.
My recollection is that Kodak didn't really sell many film cameras five
years ago. Kodak preferred to sell film, chemistry, and processing
machines. I don't think Sony ever sold film cameras.
>- -----Original Message-----
>From: owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Piers Hemy
>Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 3:23 PM
>To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: [OM] US Sales of digital cameras in 2003 Q3
>
>
>Interesting, Joe (interesting also that you read Economist, my hat off
>to you!).
Thanks. In addition to the usual flood of technical journals, I also
read The Wall Steet Journal. Does this help or hurt?
>But I think your conclusion misses something hidden in the data, which
>is that Can*n, K*dak and HP are gaining market share while F*ji, S*ny
>and Olympus are losing market share.
Yes, but it's easier for someone with a small market share to generate a
large percentage increase than for a market leader to do the same. At
the top, it's almost a zero-sum game (even as that market grows at ~40%
a year), as people aren't going to buy more digital cameras in total
except insofar as general improvements in price and technology cause the
market to expand, so each relative increase is at the expense of someone
else. The default is that relative market shares remain the same even
as the total number of cameras sold changes.
That said, companies that have growth less that that of the overall
market will see their market share shrink, if the period of low growth
endures. (Quarterly stats are too noisy to draw too large a
conclusion.)
As for Olympus, being #4 by volume, bracketed by Canon and Nikon, means
that Olympus won't disappear so quickly; it would take years of major
blunders to become like FujiFilm. The stuff we have been complaining
about in prior debates may or may not be mistakes, but none are blunders
sufficient to make any detectable difference at this level.
I would bet that Kodak is taking sales mostly from Sony, mainly because
I have read in the business press many stories about the problems at
Sony, but few to no stories about any such problems at Canon, Olympus,
Nikon, et al. Sony the organization seems to have lost their way. I
hope they find themselves very soon; in their heyday, Sony products were
noticably better than competing products.
Joe Gwinn
>- -----Original Message-----
>From: owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>On Behalf Of Joe Gwinn
>Sent: 03 January 2004 17:09
>To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [OM] US Sales of digital cameras in 2003 Q3
>
>On page 46 of the 3 January 2003 issue of The Economist there appears
>an article titled "Has Kodak missed the moment?". Basically, the
>article says that film is dying faster than Kodak expected, with the
>usual back-and-forth on the future of Kodak and photography. Kodak is
>buying and developing all manner of digital imaging businesses, but I
>think that it's far too soon to tell if they will pull off the
>transition away from silver. At least they are trying.
>
>Anyway, for me the most interesting thing in the article was a table
>giving sales of digital camera in the US for the fourth quarter of
>2003, broken out by company:
>
>Name Units MktShare Growth from
'02Q3
>Sony 800k 22.4% 11.1%
>Kodak 625k 17.5% 66.7%
>Canon 550K 15.4% 83.3%
>Olympus 414k 11.6% 13.8%
>Nikon 340k 9.5% 58.1%
>FujiFilm 270k 7.5% -3.6%
>HP 245k 6.8% 113.0%
>Other 334k 9.3% -85.6%
>
>Total 3,578k 100% 39.2%
>
>So, in 3Q 2003, a total of 3.578 million digital cameras were sold in
>the US, or about 14 million a year, and the overall digital camera
>market is growing by about 40% per year. Kodak is the real comer, but
>Olympus isn't doing so badly.
>
>Joe Gwinn
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|