Canon falls off a cliff as Nikon grabs the #1 market share in DSLRs/iLCs in Japan in H1:2010 [revisited]

The perhaps surprising news of Nikon grabbing the #1 market share in Japan among interchangeable-lens cameras for the first half of 2010 broke last night, just before the new Sony Exmor-R 3D trio and the Nikon likely-maybe-mirrorless new-concept news, so now that the dust has settled, it is time to pick up where we left off last night!

BCN measures market share of DSLRs and iLCs (interchangeable lens cameras) in Japan, using point of sale data. This data set includes the first half of 2010, namely January 1st until the end of day on June 30. We should point out, the Japanese market is not always indicative of the rest of the world, as the Japanese market is more advanced/mature, and it has distinct preferences and tastes.

We have turned the BCN table into a colorful chart, so you can get another view of the data, with blue being 2009 and orange being 2010.

Here are some observations based on the above:

+ Canon fell off a cliff, a drop of 7.7% in market share. That's not a small number

+ mirrorless impact - both Panasonic and Olympus went up

+ the K-x saved Pentax - they went up thanks to the K-x getting 6.3% overall market share (Pentax total is 7.8%)

+ Sony essentially flat (Alphas actually down, but NEX added to market share)

+ "The Others" got squeezed even more, from 0.7% market share in 2009 down to 0.2%. OUCH!

+ The CaNiKon (Canon+Nikon) duopoly lost market share to the rest, 75.4% in 2009 vs 70.4% in 2010

If you scroll further down on the BCN Ranking article (computer-translated) you will notice the Top 20 of interchangeable lens cameras for the first half of 2010. Here are some observations based on that:

+ one 35mmFF (you guessed it, Canon 5D Mark II)

+ seven mirrorless cameras (2 in the Top 10, 4 in the Top 12)

+ Canon (6), Nikon (4), Panasonic (3), Olympus (3), Sony (3), Pentax (1)

+ top seller: Nikon D90 with 13% overall market share (roughly one out of every 8 DSLRs/iLCs sold)

+ top non-CaNiKon seller: Pentax K-x

+ top mirrorless camera: Panasonic GF1

+ Top 20 market-share: 92.4%

+ DSLRs/iLCs outside the Top 20 got 7.6% of market share

Data Source
+ BCN Ranking [computer-translated]