Feeling the heat

Look around you. Phone manufacturers are putting out cameraphones with insane number of megapixels (41 at last count). Phone companies have gone great lengths to make Carl Zeiss a household name by using its optics in every mobile phone, an accomplishment the lensmaker itself has not matched in its 150-year existence. These cameras, one can say, make phone calls, come with free built-in GPS and internet connectivity, something a pocket-size camera can never match.

Tough times
Does that ring the death knell for cameras? It’s an easy prediction to make, especially since the 131-year-old imaging behemoth Kodak, a company that once held more than 90 per cent market share of film sales in some markets, announced its exit from digital camera business. Kodak filed for bankruptcy early this year, an indicator of how tough times are for the industry at present.
“Point-and-shoot is slowly getting built into mobile phones,” says Rakesh Khanna, Head of Sony, Jumbo Electronics. A January report by market analyst Euromonitor International pegs the low sales of cameras in 2009 to the launch of many new smartphones. “Smartphones are now poised to cannibalise sales of point-and-shoot cameras,” the report claims.
Now, focus on the details. There are photographs everywhere — your desktop is personalised with a photo of your pet’s paws, the wallpaper on that new phone is a close shot of autumn leaves you took while waiting for your wife on holiday, the digital photo frame in the living room pretty much demands that you upload more photos every month or so, social media sites such as facebook, linkedin and twitter make it necessary for you to reinvent a new persona each time you change your hairstyle. There are more than four walls in your life, most of these demand decorations. Are you using the camera phone to take all these shots? “I don’t think so,” says Shaji Shanmughan, Brand Manager — Nikon, Grand Stores, UAE. “Once or twice they use mobile phones for uploading pictures, the third time they buy a camera,” he says.

Increase in demand
Those mapping consumer behaviour from behind the counter say consumers are aware of the fact that even the most advanced mobile phones can’t compete with technology in the fast-growing camera market. “Mobile phone cameras have evolved greatly, but to obtain sharp images with optical zoom, you still require a digital camera,” says Toufic Eido, New Business and Concessionaire Manager, Virgin Megastore, MENA.
For optimistic camera companies, the mobile phone with its camera and internet is a blessing rather than a threat, with consumer demand now being pushed like never before.
“You will find that earlier where there was one camera in a family, now there are six to seven. There is a point and shoot, an SLR and a video camera. The largest chunk goes to mobile cameras. But the bottom line is that the understanding of cameras and photography is going up,” says Khanna.
Sales of cameras, retailers say,
are divided across four segments — point-and-shoot, semi-professional or bridge cameras, SLRs and video cameras. All four segments work according to their own rules. While
it may seem like point-and-shoot cameras are the first to lose the fight against camera phones, the more popular manufacturers which, Eido says include Nikon, Canon, Sony and Fujifilm, have upped their game to capture the lost market.

Serious business
According to Khanna, point-and-shoot cameras still lead the demand in terms of numbers — about 80 per cent of the total sales of all cameras in the UAE come from this segment. “Point-and-shoot cameras are reinventing themselves with better processors, zoom and special picture effects. For example, a new product from Sony can take multiple pictures, pick up the best aspects of each and weave them into one final picture,” he says.
Others are innovating by providing social media features on so-called smart cameras. Samsung’s new CL80 comes with WiFi capabilities built in, allowing users to email pictures or upload them to the web as soon as they are taken. >
Eido says consumers buy point-and-shoot cameras on the basis of easy portability to carry, stylish colours, unique features and high megapixels.
Since photography is almost ubiquitous, more and more people are now taking cameras more seriously. “People who are already used to a camera now want to satisfy their creativity. They want to take close-ups and finer shots. They want aperture control and want to do a little more,” says Khanna.
Consumers on their way to becoming amateur photographers opt for bridge cameras offered by most major manufacturers. These minimise the learning curve, unlike, say, with SLRs. Innovation is key here too with manufacturers trying to combine the advantages of an SLR with the comfort and flexibility of an automatic. Whatever the case, the real action is in the DSLR, which commands the biggest value share in camera sales. “In terms of value DSLR sales contribute to 70 per cent of value share in camera sales,” says Khanna. >
Interestingly, retailers say that it is the young who are driving up sales of DSLRs, or professional cameras. “The DSLR is the new style icon,” says Eido.

Staying up to date
Accordingly, manufacturers are showcasing newer designs and capabilities. Nikon’s entry level DSLR, D3000 comes with a Guide mode, which helps new users navigate their way around photos. As the guide mode shows, consumers are keen to be educated. Camera retailers work hard to stay up to date with trends and developments. “Virgin Megastore works with CompuME to provide all staff with current and cutting edge training seminars,” says Eido.
Khanna says that Sony is focusing on education too — the third quarter of this year will see internet being used for consumer education. In addition, its new programme for students, which is currently being finalised, involves inviting students to stores, taking them through some training, trying out cameras and photo editing, and they get a certificate once they complete the course. “People don’t want to shoot models in a dark room. People want to shoot in daily life, something more than a simple SLR,” says Khanna, citing technologies such as Nikon’s V1 and D1, which allow for better video autofocus.
Greater advances in compact cameras also mean that the standalone video camera segment is losing ground — consumers find them large and cumbersome and the picture quality of the stills is not up to the mark.
“The video camera has been declining category wise by more than 10 per cent each year for the last two years. The reason is that point-and-shoot cameras are becoming very good. They can shoot fully HD video images and during normal usage, with an 18 or 32 GB memory card and a normal camera you can shoot everything in video — marriages, parties and day-to-day activity,” says Khanna.

Will cameras survive?
The solution to this lies in innovation — one of these include being able to shoot and project. “Video cameras are threatened so they are trying to find their own position. So a different segment is emerging. The consumers are people who are out travelling, people who shoot videos for memories. While earlier they would have considered a normal camera good enough they now find that they can project [their videos] through the camera, which means greater enjoyment,” he says.
As for Kodak, it is ironically looking for succour in mobile devices by leveraging its patents that cover technology for previewing photos on a digital camera and sharing them online — it helped the company raise $1.9-billion (about Dh6.9-billion) via patent settlements between 2008 and 2010.
The lesson to be learnt here deals with connectivity of devices — the consumer wants a camera that connects to a mobile, the television and the tablet. So will the camera live? Khanna sums it up, saying, “In my knowledge camera sales have never come down.”