joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

According to Statista.com shipments of interchangeable lens cameras are on the decline globally.

It will be interesting to see how the next few years shake out.

Will they be relegated to pros and serious amateurs?

(Download)

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

This probably isn't going to encourage manufacturers to design new lenses.

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

I think that will probably be the case. Phone cameras have made incredible improvements over the years, and either are or soon will be good enough for the casual shooter. Camera quality is becoming a major selling point for phones.

The chart didn't indicate how individual camera types were selling. I would think that pocket cameras and point and shoots would be experiencing the largest drop off while pro and enthusiast cameras are faring better.

It will be interesting to see how it develops.

oldtigger Loc: Roanoke Virginia-USA

I'm curious what they did in 2014 and 2015

achesley Loc: SW Louisiana

The two Marti Gras Parades I went to last week, probably an easy 90% of the people I saw taking pictures were with cell phones. May be saw 2 DSLRs where I roamed. I was using my XS50 canon.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

If I were in a mob like that, I wouldn't bring a DSLR - compact, probably.

Rcox

Phone cameras primarily compete with point and shot cameras. The high end P&S cameras compete with the DSLR cameras. Look for the ranks of DSLR manufactures to start thinning out.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

We just put up three framed 16x20 prints made with an iPhone 6s. When you can do that, proudly, and without caring whether they came from an interchangeable lens camera, the (light) writing is on the wall!

The smart phone will eventually kill off MOST of the demand for interchangeable lens cameras, because smart phones will get better, and better, and better. Look to see MAJOR advances over the next decade. You think it's "mature" technology now? I don't think we've seen a tenth of what it can be!

I do think we will have the "serious" dedicated cameras around for a long time, but there will be fewer models, made by fewer brands.

Paradigm shifts in markets occur all the time. The photography market was relatively stable for many decades. It saw a slow, steady, and steadily accelerating, pace of change. But the confluence of convergence technologies — computers, the Internet, digital cameras, social media sites, mobile phone and tablet technologies, audio, and video — just got white hot! It's all hit a critical mass of capabilities and possibilities.

First to go were mini-labs. Remember when there were mini-labs in every drugstore, big box store, and some grocery stores? Heck, they had drive-in mini-labs in some towns. The first wave of point-and-shoot digital cameras KILLED 90% of the 4x6 print volume in less than five years. Suddenly, we were sharing images via email, then Internet sites. NO ONE wants a shoebox full of 4x6 prints!

The next wave of change hit the film SLR market, as pros and advanced amateurs made the switch. Even in the late 1990s, it made sense to use a 1.3 MP dSLR for news coverage.

If you look back a few years, you can see the rest of what happened. There's been a merger of ALL the convergence technologies into the smart phone. It is now a TV *and* a video camera, a personal movie theater *and* a video editing suite, an Internet radio *and* a recording studio, a photo album *and* the camera to feed it... And it is anything else you want it to be, within the power of a couple MILLION apps.

When a "good enough" device displaces your dSLR or mirrorless camera most of the time, for casual photography, you start to wonder whether to buy another dedicated personal camera.

No major medium ever invented totally killed off the media it was designed to replace. We still have (smaller) newspapers and magazines. We still have AM radio. We still have vinyl records and tube amplifiers and film cameras and audio cassettes. If you look hard enough, you can even find a dot matrix printer or a typewriter.

But those are fast becoming niche markets. The same thing will happen to all dedicated devices. They will die off, or move to a high-end market niche.

Tjohn Loc: Inverness, FL formerly Arivaca, AZ

I wonder how much is changing trends or a reflection of a worldwide economic malaise.

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

No doubt the two are connected. But from my point of view suspect its more related to changing trends.

I think Bill B is right on target.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

LoL, they are already dedicated to pros and serious amatuers. For the masses there are P&S's, ML's and cell phones.
ML's are the new Instamatics....., oh wait...., Instamatics, WERE ML !!!! 🙊 🙉 🙈
SS

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

Indeed they are but this group is not responsible for the bulk of the sales.

The silent majority of DSLR users never buy more than one lens (ref: Thom Hogan).

Of course if your only exposure is UHH you might not know any better.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

My sister has a panny bridge camera, since she got her smart phone she never uses it. But she doesn't know the difference between a F-stop and a stop sign. My guess is that most good photographers also use a smart phone camera from time to time as a cell phone piture is better than no picture. Weather or not the cell phone will replace DSLR is open to question. I hope not.

PVR8 Loc: Raleigh, NC

Correct. I was recently at a Chinese lantern exhibiton and most of the people I saw taking pictures were using dslr's and bridge cameras with tripods and monopods. Different types of photography equipment is suitable for different places and occasions. Casual shooters will gravitate towards cell phones but it would be quite surprising to see serious photography hobbyists or professionals jumping on the cell phone camera bandwagon in any significant numbers any time soon. I personally prefer shooting with my Nikon Coolpix p&s for times when I don't want to use a larger dslr. The cell phone camera has only been used when I want to grab a quick shot to send to someone immediately and photo quality is not a major consideration.

BebuLamar

Cell phone has tiny sensor which is good for having good depth of field.