BCN's final year-end sales numbers for the Japanese camera market are in. For compact cameras, Canon (19.6%), Casio (18.6%), and Panasonic (14.6%) continue to eat up more than half the unit volume. Canon's market share there has held steady, Casios has been growing (mostly at Sony's expense), and Panasonic's has been sliding. But together, those three represent 53% of all compact camera sales in Japan.
In DSLRs, there are two stories. First, let's look at the Nikon versus Canon rivalry:
I've smoothed the curves slightly to better show the trend: Canon dipped as Nikon surged, then Canon flattened at about the 40% share. Nikon surged from a strong-but-distant second place position to take the lead in 2007, only to dip back to their more historic 30% share by 2009. The third place position in the market was Pentax from 2005 to 2007, then Sony in 2008, now Panasonic in 2009. None of those third place finishers broke the 10% mark, though micro 4/3 cameras as a group did. The top three makers hold about 80% of the market, down from a historical high of 90%. Put another way, Canon and Nikon continue to hold the dominate positions in DSLRs in Japan, but that dominance has eroded a bit with more competition.
Remember, these are Japanese-only market numbers, based upon unit volume sold at retail during the calendar year. Japan-market shipments have dropped considerably as a percentage of overall sales, now representing approximately 9% of worldwide sales overall, and about 11% of DSLR sales worldwide. However, since the camera makers are highly conscious of their home market, you have to bet that these numbers are watched closely and used to formulate future plans.
I think it is safe to say that the Big Three camera makers in Japan are Canon, Nikon, and Panasonic, in that order. That has to represent major disappointment to Sony. Olympus continues to fail to break into the top three in either category of camera--the Pen nostalgia play didn't quite move the market as much as I think they thought it might.