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According to the latest figures (PDF) from Japan-based Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA), total shipments of interchangeable-lens digital cameras grew by almost 11% in 2022. Some 5.93 million units of interchangeable-lens cameras were shipped, 110.8% of the previous year. This class of camera accounts for nearly three-quarters (74%) of total shipments. Meanwhile, shipments of lenses in 2022 totalled 9.73 million units, a small 2% increase on the previous year and roughly 1.6 times the number of interchangeable-lens camera bodies shipped.

Overall, however, the total shipments of digital cameras were down 4.2% to 8.01 million units. The camera market first started to decrease in 2009 due to the impact of the global economic recession. Although it started to pick up in 2017, CIPA’s figures show, the market has fallen below the previous year’s level for five consecutive years since 2018. The principal reason for the decline in overall shipments remains the rise of smartphones, which has dramatically affected the sales of compact digital cameras. In 2022, shipments of digital cameras with a built-in lens dropped 30% compared to the previous year, with just 2.08 million units shipped—just over 26% of the total.

In the same report, CIPA provided a rather gloomy outlook for 2023, expecting to ship only 5.72 million units of interchangeable-lens cameras (down 3.5% compared to 2022), 9.39 million units of lenses (down 3.5%), and just 1.68 million compacts (down 19%). The association cites the continuing “worldwide semiconductor supply shortage” and “the fact that the dark clouds of the coronavirus disaster have not been completely cleared” as reasons for the pessimism.