Nikon/Canon vs Apple/Samsung

Is the DSLR industry at risk against mobile technology?

Technology has been evolving fast, specifically on mobile phones. Each day there is a new functionality on smart phones that are having strong impacts on many other companies and diverse industries.

In a world where apps such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or any other social media or social network, have triggered the use of smart phones and more the camera on the phones, the usage of portable cameras within smart phones are becoming a ritual.

Today the world population owns 32% of smart phones and these are shaping big changes in the behavior of owners, such as sharing pictures, be the first to inform, capture unique moments (sometimes even some very danger moments), among other activities that users are doing on a daily basis and many times a day. Moreover, if we add to the phones better lens technology and quality to each photo, there is a big impact on DSLR professional cameras. In fact, if you can capture a high res picture that could be printed in a billboard format, why would you need to carry a big camera?, What would be the future of the DSLR industry? How should they evolve? My personal view is that the DSLR industry size will continue to decrease. As of today the shipped DSLR cameras decreased 35% in 2016 vs previous year, while lenses have decrease 12%. What if Nikon or Canon would develop the technology on phone lens? Would you like to have a Samsung phone with a Nikon lens that has video in 4K. This is an opportunity that the industry could capture, i am not sure if is too late but is something to think about. The DSLR industry would become a niche very unique and probably would get back to film maintaining some digital capabilities, but definitely much smaller that what had been the last 3 years.

Source

1.https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/

2. https://www.diyphotography.net/camera-sales-report-2016-lowest-sales-ever-dslrs-mirrorless/