The Asia Pacific region has shown resilience amidst the challenging imaging market conditions as the rising penetration of smartphones continues to dominate consumer spending on tech gadgets in 2015, according to consumer research firm Gfk.
As the overall market shrank by 19 percent compared to a year ago to less than $2.6 billion, photography enthusiasts in the region have shifted the industry?s focus to the more advanced and high-end DSLR and mirrorless segments which together account for over 70 percent of the market share in 2015 ? up by nearly 4 percentage points from a year ago.
In January to December 2015, over 1.3 million DSLRs and nearly 980,000 mirrorless cameras were sold, representing 39 percent of the total camera sales volume in the region.
In value terms, although the DSLR segment occupied the lion?s share of 46 percent, it was the mirrorless segment which grew nearly 5 percentage points to reach nearly a quarter (24%) of the entire digital camera market value. Its sales volume reached 979,000 units across the region. .
?It is interesting to highlight that most of the emerging countries in APAC have shown stable, if not positive growth within their respective DSLR and mirrorless segments,? said Gerard Tan, account director for technology for GfK Asia.
?In particular, consumer spending on mirrorless cameras within this region surged by nearly 50 percent last year, thanks to the rising acceptance of the high-end camera range, as well as better distribution network in the countries, which makes the gadget more easily accessible to the locals.?
The region?s average camera price for the DSLR and mirrorless segments combined stood at $785, but when it boils down to individual markets, considerable differences in average prices between countries are exhibited.
For instance, average price for these two segments was highest in Hong Kong at $1,030 while Indonesia?s was at the opposite end of the scale, at only $544.
?A piece of good new news for the industry is the insignificance in price point dips for both the DSLR and mirrorless segments, especially here in emerging Asia,? noted Tan.
?Compared to the smartphone industry where average prices have been falling noticeably, the digital camera markets in Asia Pacific have remained relatively stable and will likely carry on this way for a while,? he concluded.
