Camera companies continue to improve their products like the DSLR camera, but the market for consumer digital cameras is falling. Canon President Fujio Matarai says that the volume of camera sales has been decreasing constantly for the past couple of years and in the next two years it is expected to fall from 10 million units sold a year to almost half that.
Most people today are not buying digital cameras anymore because they already have one in their pocket. Smart phones make it easy for everyday people to photograph their lives. The improvements in phone camera quality are often comparable to a DSLR. Amateur photographers and average people no longer need professional equipment.
The convenience factor of a phone camera is a pivotal element in the choice consumers make in buying a better phone or a better camera. People can shoot photos and videos, edit, and upload to social media, all from one device and still have decent quality. If that is good enough for people, they have no reason to buy one piece of gear for the same price they can have a whole set. This shift also hurts the stock photo and footage market. People do not pay to use photos and videos someone else shot if they are able to shoot it themselves.
If Canon wants to stay ahead of their seemingly inevitable decline, they need to market their cameras to everyday consumers. By seeing what makes a smartphone camera more desirable to people today, they can implement those features in their own products.
JMC 367 Spring 2019 Blog 
I’m hoping that the prices of DSLRs also decrease with the demand decrease. They’re so expensive nowadays that I have ingrained in my brain that I’ll never own a brand new DSLR, I’ll always buy a generation or two older. You’re absolutely right about the quality of phone cameras, too. When I was shopping for a new phone, it needed to have a really good camera because I usually don’t have my DSLR on me.
I don’t think the whole industry will change just because the average Joe can film and edit a video on his phone. But I do think the market will become oversaturated with amateur videographers and photographers that don’t understand all of the factors that go into creating a good video or photo. If Canon were to market their DSLRs to everyday consumers, they would have to find a way to make their cameras as easy to use as a phone camera. I think they could do it.
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I think that the demand for the DSLR’s dropping is a good thing for the public, but maybe not so much for Canon. However, I think you made several good points. I think that the decrease in popularity will result in a price decrease as well. I think it would be really cool if they decided to market to an amatuer audience as well. Right now their cameras are really complicated to use if you haven’t used them before.
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I am not surprised to hear that ease of access has been a key factor in declining DSLR sales. With a phone that has decent quality and satisfies the needs of the general public who simply are desiring to have the ability to take pictures and videos, I would imagine this is the biggest competition Canon is facing. As they move forward with future generations it will be interesting to see if they try to create cameras that focus on convenience factors for users.
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