CIPA July 2010 production and shipment numbers: Asia saves the day!

CIPA has published the July 2010 shipment data for digital cameras, which you can find, along with previous months/years at their Archives page. Let's see what the July cat brought us...

Production of cameras
There are some good news and bad news here. Compared to July of 2009, more digital cameras were produced (110.3%), but at a lower yen value (95.5%) as camera prices continue to drop. On the plus side, interchangeable lens cameras were up in both units and value compared to July 2009.

Compared to June of 2010, the numbers are down across the board, but we have to keep in mind not all months are created equal, and July is summer time.

The year-to-date (January through July) numbers continue to be positive, with 136.9% more cameras produced at a 114.3% yen-value compared to the same period in 2009. DSLRs have slightly higher percentages than fixed-lens compacts.

Production numbers are global/world-wide, there is no breakdown by geographical region.

Shipment of cameras
The world-wide shipment numbers pretty much mirror the production numbers mentioned above, with better numbers compared to 2009 across the board.

In the regional breakdown, Europe had the lead in most cameras shipped-to in July 2010, with around 2.885 million, followed by 2.630 million in the Americas and 1.977 million in Asia (excluding Japan). However, one very interesting pattern is that in terms of yen-value, Asia was very close to the European total, even though there is a difference of almost one million cameras. So if you are a camera manufacturer, you want to sell to Asia now! The main reason for this appears to be the popularlity of interchangeable-lens cameras in Asia. Asia also has the strongest numbers compared to last month, July 2009 and year-to-date. So camera manufacturers should be wise to focus more of their attention to Asia. Asia does have after all not one but two countries with populations of over one-billion.

The Americas were the only market that had fewer cameras shipped-to in July 2010 than in July 2009. The financial issues are no doubt part of the equation. Even the interchangeable lens cameras were not over 100% (99.7%) compared to July 2009.

Unit-wise, Europe led the way with 353,855 shipments of interchangeable lens cameras, followed by Asia and the Americas. Asian shipments however brought in 13.25 billion yen, compared to 10.95 billion yen in Europe and 7.26 billion yen in the Americas. Asia's percentages are saving the day for the manufacturer as well, as they had a 196.6% unit and 161.8% value (yen) increase compared to July 2009.