An interesting post on Sony Alpha Rumours regarding Sony market share in Japan, here.
In summary: Sony gained market share in mirrorless cameras, whilst losing it in the DSLR/DSLT and compact camera markets.
This generally reinforces the point that I made in my posts last year about Sony’s imaging strategy, that Sony finds itself in a unique place amongst the major camera manufacturers. Unfortunately, unique does not equate to good in this case, especially for existing Sony customers.
To reiterate – Sony is the only major manufacturer to find itself with a significant user base which is split between two lens mounts. Canikon have produced mirrorless offerings which have failed to set the world alight, but this failure may ultimately prove to be an advantage as the vast majority of their respective user bases remain on single, long standing lens mounts. This gives them access to an enormous range of third party and legacy lenses, which Sony just can’t match, on A or E mount.
In other news, Sony is dropping the NEX brand. This seems like a weak attempt to hide this problem by uniting all their interchangeable lens cameras under the Alpha badge and hoping that the casual observer won’t notice the different specs. Sony’s Mark Weir is quoted as explaining the move by saying:
Even the normally upbeat Andrea had to comment:
You will note that there are protestations of commitment to A mount from Sony, but I think that they protest too much. A more likely scenario is that A mount will now be allowed to quietly wither and die, slowly - or perhaps not so slowly? - disappearing from the Alpha range.
This generally reinforces the point that I made in my posts last year about Sony’s imaging strategy, that Sony finds itself in a unique place amongst the major camera manufacturers. Unfortunately, unique does not equate to good in this case, especially for existing Sony customers.
To reiterate – Sony is the only major manufacturer to find itself with a significant user base which is split between two lens mounts. Canikon have produced mirrorless offerings which have failed to set the world alight, but this failure may ultimately prove to be an advantage as the vast majority of their respective user bases remain on single, long standing lens mounts. This gives them access to an enormous range of third party and legacy lenses, which Sony just can’t match, on A or E mount.
In other news, Sony is dropping the NEX brand. This seems like a weak attempt to hide this problem by uniting all their interchangeable lens cameras under the Alpha badge and hoping that the casual observer won’t notice the different specs. Sony’s Mark Weir is quoted as explaining the move by saying:
“…there was concern that consumers could easily misunderstand there to be a lack of compatibility between the two.”
“Well there is a lack of compatibility between the two! Or can you use the FE lenses bought for the A7-A7r on the A77-A99? Nope ”
No comments:
Post a Comment