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| An illustration from BCN Retail showing the unit sales%age, by manufacturer, of Canon (Blue), Olympus (Green) and Sony (Red) from February 3 (far-left) to April 20 (far-right). |
BCN Retail, an analyst firm that collects daily sales data of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras from online and in-person points of sales in Japan, has released its figures for April 2020 that show just how much the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to decimate the camera market.
Last month we shared BCN Retail’s March report, which showed a 50% drop year-over-year Unfortunately, it seems that was just the beginning. April 2020 numbers from BCN Retail show MILC sales are just 26.1% what they were April 2019 and down nearly half (49.5%) from the already abysmal March sales numbers.
While the decrease in sales is alarming, it’s not unexpected. Canon reported in its recent financial statements that it expected things to get worse before they get better and Nikon is expecting a dramatic decrease in sales as well due to the ongoing pandemic.
Unlike last month’s report, which covered March, BCN Retail doesn’t note whether or not Fujifilm is still on the rise (it was the sole company to increase its market share year-over-year), but BCN Retail’s April stats do show Canon, Olympus and Sony are still battling it out for market share in the Japanese market with only eight or so percentage points separating the three as of April 20, 2020.
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| A chart showing the top-selling camera models in April, based on BCN Retail's data. |
The market share of individual camera models also remains largely unchanged with more affordable crop-sensor cameras taking the top ten spots. As has more or less been the case for the past few months, the Canon EOS M50 takes the top spot, with the Sony a6400, Olympus Pen E-PL9, Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III and Canon EOS M100 rounding out the top five. One newcomer is the Fujifilm X-T100, which managed to sneak in at the ten spot.