BCN Japan has released sales data for 2025 – giving us a clear indication for how the camera market is doing in Japan – and whilst it’s not going to be representative of the rest of the world, it does give us an insight that is hard to find elsewhere. And, if you’ve ever wondered what’s big in Japan (haha), particularly for compact point and shoot cameras, then Kodak are winning, with a 24% market share, beating Canon who are no longer listed in the top three.
Kodak are perhaps one of the only real brands offering a range of budget compact cameras, starting around $79 for the Kodak PixPro C1, going up to the $99-120 PixPro FZ45 (with Xenon flash), and then for just a little bit more, there’s the $149 PixPro FZ55, which means that if you’re on a limited budget, there’s a whole range of Kodaks to look at, before even considering other brands. Other brands, particularly Yashica offer point-and-shoot compacts, but these are often twice the price (or more), and Canon’s latest compact camera is 4-5x the price, at roughly $4-500 (or more).
After Kodak, Fujifilm are the next biggest seller with a 13.9% market share, with models like the Fujifilm Instax Pal, and the X-half, which vary in prices from very cheap (Instax Pal), to quite expensive, at roughly $649/$849 for the X-half.
Just to show how price affects how many cameras are bought, the camera brand in 3rd place is Kenko Tokina, who make a range of budget compacts that are rarely available outside of Japan. Previous years Canon has been on the top of this list.
It’s not just Japan where Kodak are selling compacts in big numbers, as they also feature on Amazon’s best sellers list, with the Kodak PixPro FZ45 and FZ55 regularly at the top.
I reviewed the Kodak PixPro FZ45 and was quite impressed given the low-price, and felt that the real Xenon flash gave it a real advantage compared to both smartphones and other budget compact cameras. If a compact camera has an LED flash, then it’s not going to give good flash photos, and is therefore best avoided.
Source BCN Japan (use a browser with built-in translation if you want to head over and take a look), Via Petapixel.
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