How Smartphones are affecting the camera industry

James Sutton - unsplash

Even though cameras have taken leaps and bounds since they were first invented back in the 1800s, it is very clear, from the sales drop, that they are not so sought after anymore.

With a high tech and high resolution/pixel smartphone, the world is taking more photos than ever before. In fact, the stats show us that approximately over 1.5 trillion photos have been taken to date. And, most of those have been taken by amateurs and been taken from their very own smartphone cameras.

What does this mean for the photographic industry?

Besides the convenience of having a cell phone on tap at any given moment, the smartphones of today have quite high specs built into them. Combining the sensors increasing size and sensitivity to light and apertures that are much wider than before, these camera are allowing for impressive low-light capabilities. Built in filters and post production applications allow your images to go directly from your phone to any platform of your choice.

Although professionals and enthusiast will still be able to get better results using dedicated equipment, what can be achieved with your smartphone at the moment is completely sufficient for the average consumer and having a dedicated piece of technology does not make sense.

So how is this effecting the industry and what are camera manufacturers doing to compensate for this massive drop in sales. According to CIPA, a Japan-based industry group with members such as Olympus, Canon and Nikon, worldwide camera shipments dropped nearly 80 percent between 2010 and 2017. The main decline is seen in your point and shoot cameras for the average user that can now rely on a smartphone to capture their memories and document their lives.

Professionals will still support these companies as they will only rely on professional equipment for their business. In my opinion, professional cameras will not be replaced by the smartphone any time soon. And in saying this I truly hope that us loyal clients will not have to bear the load that this declining industry must have on our camera suppliers.