Demand for Nikon interchangeable-lens cameras drops 20% in a year

Nikon reported strong sales of DSLRs such as the D750

Nikon sold 4.61 million system cameras in the year to 31 March 2015, compared to 5.75m last year, according to the company’s full-year accounts.

Nikon reported a ‘sluggish’ market, mainly in Europe and China.

Unit sales of interchangeable lenses dropped 19% compared to the previous 12 months. Demand decreased from 8.23m, to 6.68m – a fall of 1.55m units.

Predictably, compact cameras saw the biggest decline with sales falling 31%.

However, Nikon’s Tokyo headquarters remained upbeat, saying that net sales at the firm’s Imaging Products Business only decreased by 14.5%, and operating income only 11.8%.

Nikon reported strong sales of the D750 and D810, adding that market share ‘grew significantly’, as it did for the D7200, D7100, D5500 and D3300 – especially in the USA and Russia during the first three months of 2015.

The company predicted that the interchangeable-lens camera market ‘will begin to recover from the second half of the fiscal year’.