More bread crumbs from industry rumors.
All camera makers took a hit on both unit sales and profit again this year. Canon seems to have taken the biggest hit but that only makes sense because they have 40& of the world wide market. Sales and profit were both down 55%. Obviously Canon is deep into finding a way to mitigate the market trends.
Numbers for the mirrorless segment in Japan have been released and they are, for me, surprising. Canon came in first at 31%. Sony (yeah, surprised me too) came in at 30%. Olympus rated third at 21% followed by Panasonic at 10%. None of the others made it onto the chart. That Nikon didn't place and that Sony is so close on the King's heals is a surprise to me. Both show an encouraging growth trend. Pany and Oly are holding even which in the overall camera market is a good sign.
Keep in mind that this is for mirrorless cameras in Japan only. Add in DSLRs and and placement in the world market falls where you'd expect it but the mirrorless segment is the only one that shows growth.
Of the top 10 entries in volume Canon and Panasonic had two two models each with Sony and Oly scoreing 3 products each. All except one of the top ten would be considered compact ICL crop sensor cameras with the Sony 7 A III the outlier.
Now for the shocker, at least for me. Canon has patented 4 lenses that only cover a 4/3 format! But there are design parameters that do not fit existing 4/3 dimensions, notably mount flange to focal plane distance which is shorter than the 4/3 standard. What???
What are the plans for this new design? They could introduce yet another lens mount in addition to the 4 they already make, or they can design a body that allows the rear element to recess into the body the way teleconverters recess into the rear lenses. That would make them incompatible with most older m.4/3 bodies but Canon is obviously looking to the future. They could sell the design to third market manufacturers but the restriction on backward compatibility make that unlikely and Canon has never done that.
I suspect that looking at the Japanese market they see a trend to smaller high image quality product. Japan has always been the leading indicater for future sales. Although the trend in US and European segments has been full frame ( they make up the largest target for unit volume) Canon isn't stupid and knows they need to be prepared for the next trend.
If they do it right every lens they've made can retro fit with an adapter and because DSLR lenses all use pdaf auto focus and new m.4/3 incorporate both cdaf and pdaf they won't suffer the abismal performance of retro fitting legacy lenses to older crop sensor cameras and they can combine ibis and ilis for 5 stop stabilization.
If any manufacturer can pull off yet another product line Canon can.
As an aside crop sensors make up the bulk of industrial and scientific applications which bolster the market segments that support the camera division as an R&D testbed.
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