photo © 2010 Cliff | more info (via: Wylio)

International market research company IDC released its analysis of the 2010 market for digital cameras.

Worldwide Digital Camera Market Shares by Vendor
(in number of cameras sold)
================================================
Vendor                2010            2009
------------------------------------------------
Canon                  19               19
Sony                   17.9             16.9
Nikon                  12.6             11.1
Samsung                11.1             10.9
Kodak                   7.4              8.8
Panasonic               7.6              7.6
Olympus                 6.1              6.2
Fuji                    4.9              5.4
Casio                   4                4.7
Pentax                  1.5              1.7
Vivitar                 1.2              0.7
Other                   6.7              7
-------------------------------------------------

Canon won’t move from the 1st position. Sony and Nikon keep fighting their way to the top, but Sony still could not reach for the highest step. The others did not really move except for Kodak slowly slipping down.

This gives the image of a very mature market where companies with long-acquired positions are difficult to oust even by very aggressive relatively new competitors like Samsung stuck at around 11% market share.

AP tells us that on the Japanese market, where Nikon and Canon together loose about 11% of market share, Sony reaches the 15% water mark. The two big brands do not lave their top positions, but Sony is now a clear third runner with a very aggressive range for small- and medium-sized systems (compact and NEX cameras).

Nikon is still very powerful everywhere in the world thanks to (little known fact) an impressive strength for point-and-shoot cameras (they ship as much as they can manufacture) and is nearly certainly preparing the launch in 2011 of a direct competition to Sony NEX (mirror-less cameras with interchangeable lenses). I stay convinced that the yellow brand is ready to fight.

Things are less easy for Canon. Having told clearly that they don’t want to see the SLR cameras competing against a new series, but ready to fight the price war, they are not easily perceived as having the impetus to blow new life into the whole photo Division, even if Canon is still totally unavoidable for SLR’s mainly because its policy of small but repeated increments succeeds in re-assuring more than revolutionary leaps (as difficult to understand as they can be elsewhere on the market).