Cameras are a treasured technology around the world for their ability to capture a moment vividly forever. Throughout the years, camera technology and availability have improved drastically.
The average family of four can buy an affordable camera to memorialize their children’s early years. A professional photographer can buy a camera with the same price tag as a car and use it to catch pictures of endangered animals from a mile away.
The variety of the camera industry contributes greatly to its status as one of the most profitable industries on the market.
The largest camera brands in the world ship an average of more than 120 million units per year. These camera brands include:
Sony Corporation of America. New York, United States
Annual Revenue: $12 Billion
Year Founded: 1946
Sony is the largest camera brand by a mile according to their annual revenue and the percentage of the market that they control. The brand accounts for 20% of the cameras sold globally every year. Sony has been a well-established organization long before their brand of cameras hit the market, which may be why they’ve been so wildly successful.
The brand started as an electronics shop after World War II in Tokyo. Sony started becoming known for its electronic products after creating Japan’s first tape recorder. Once they broke into the technological sphere, Sony took off.
The brand went global in the fifties, but their main interests were televisions and radios. It wasn’t until 1988 that the brand came out with its first digital camera, the Mavica, known for its television-like display.
While this marked the brand’s entrance into the camera market, Sony really started making waves when they came out with their first DSLR camera in 2006, Alpha DSLR-A-100. It’s thought that Sony’s incredible success is attributed to the well-timed release of the A-100.
Additionally, Sony worked on marketing its products to professional photographers and emphasize their camera’s photo quality details to consumers in the face of smartphone capabilities taking over the industry. Sony’s combination of smart marketing, timing, and product variety has solidified it as the largest global camera brand.
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Panasonic Corporation of North America. New Jersey, United States
Annual Revenue: $7.6 Billion
Year Founded: 1918
Though Panasonic originated over a hundred years ago under a different name as a lightbulb socket manufacturer, they’ve evolved into the second-largest camera brand globally.
The brand had a long-established history in technology when they released their first digital single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. Panasonic also releases digital cameras under the brand name Lumix.
Panasonic is another example of a camera brand that dabbles in both consumer and commercial-grade cameras. Their cameras consistently win awards for their video performance, which could be the reason behind their impact on the market.
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Nikon. Tokyo, Japan
Annual Revenue: $4.8 Billion
Year Founded: 1917
Nikon is one of the most recognizable camera brands available today. More than a century ago, it was founded as an optical lens manufacturer and even provided services for Canon’s early models.
The camera model that propelled the brand into success was the Nikon-F single lens, which became the most used camera for professional photographers and the U.S. space program.
The growth of Nikon’s brand occurred thanks to its camera’s many features. Nikon’s professional cameras include a modular system that can accommodate interchanging lenses, motor drives, and viewfinders. Their brand also develops photolithography tools as precision equipment and movie production cameras.
Nikon has cast a large net of products into the visual imaging field, and that’s resulted in it being one of the biggest camera brands around the globe.
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Canon USA. Tokyo, Japan
Annual Revenue: $3.6 Billion
Year Founded: 1955
Canon originated as a start-up with the goal of making quality cameras accessible to the public. While the brand took a few decades to get off the ground due to funding constraints, it quickly became a well-known brand after gaining its footing.
Like many other camera brands rising in popularity during the late twentieth century, Canon followed the trends in technological advancements. By the 1970s, the brand had released its first high-end SLR camera called the Canon F-1.
This was soon followed by the AE-1, the world’s first camera with an embedded micro-computer. Their continual advancements put Canon on the map for the average household and professional photographers.
Canon continued to make improvements and expand its imaging product line into the 2000s. The brand’s continual product enhancements and diverse variety of cameras available for every type of consumer have pushed Canon into being one of the largest camera brands in the world.
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Fujifilm Holdings America. Tokyo, Japan
Annual Revenue: $1.5 Billion
Year Founded: 1934
FUJIFILM is a multifaceted brand that specializes in optics, office electronics, medical equipment, and photography. FUJIFILM functioned as a manufacturer of photographic films in its early days, such as X-rays and motion pictures, which are fields that they still dabble in.
With the onset of the 21st century, the brand’s focus on photographic film started to harm their progress because the rest of the world was getting on board with digital cameras.
FUJIFILM foresaw this eventual switch coming with the new millennium and reorganized its business structure around this reality. Their efforts were more successful in this feat than a lot of other camera brands of the time.
The main reason FUJIFILM thrived in a period when most were breaking apart is that the brand capitalized on the thinning competition in the market.
Before the increasingly complex color film came about, upwards of 40 brands competed for space in the market. By the time digital cameras were taking over, the competition had dwindled to only a few brands, and FUJIFILM took advantage. A business move that’s secured them as one of the largest camera brands internationally.
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Olympus. Tokyo, Japan
Annual Revenue: $1.3 Billion
Year Founded: 1919
During its inception in the early 1900s, Olympus was primarily a medical equipment manufacturer like microscopes and thermometers. Today they remain the controlling brand of the endoscope market. It wasn’t until 1936 that Olympus started releasing cameras, but the brand got very involved in the photography realm once they did.
Olympus continued to release various innovative camera series over the next fifty years, such as the Chrome Six and the Pen. The brand went into development with Panasonic on an interchangeable lens system without mirrors to allow for a smaller camera body while still maintaining excellent image quality.
They have also made several other smart business moves, like creating different cameras with varying price demographics to broaden their customer scope.
Their business savvy and product variety has secured Olympus’ place in the market as one of the largest billion-dollar camera brands around today.
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GoPro. California, United States
Annual Revenue: $1.3 Billion
Year Founded: 2002
The GoPro brand was established a lot more recently than some of its other camera competitors. Founded in 2002, the brand hit the market as an action camera meant to capture video shots in motion accurately.
The brand’s founder, Nick Woodman, was inspired to create GoPro after failing to capture high-quality action shots on a surfing trip to Australia.
It was targeted at all types of people, from average households to professional athletes. GoPro’s product provided the high-quality videos that expensive professional equipment did at a much affordable price and with a more transportable camera mechanism. This made it ideal for point-of-view sports shots.
As stated by the GoPro brand themselves, their equipment allows people to stay in the moment while they’re capturing shots, creating the most unique and high-quality action footage.
GoPro has become a huge camera brand in a shorter period because of its product’s distinct capabilities for high-quality shots in motion and its accessibility to a wide variety of consumers.
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Kodak. New York, United States
Annual Revenue: $1.3 Billion
Year Founded: 1888
The Kodak brand of cameras was introduced to the world over 130 years ago, making it one of the oldest that’s still around today. Much like their competitors, a big challenge for the Kodak brand was moving into the digital age of photography instead of sticking to the photographic products that dominated the market beforehand.
Kodak had much more difficulty with this transition than other major camera brands. Even though the brand was ranked as the number two seller of digital cameras in 2001, they were losing an average of $60 on every one of these items sold, and their photographic products continued to tank into 2005.
The brand continued in a downward spiral and even filed for bankruptcy in 2012 before emerging a little over a year later to focus on printing.
While Kodak has experienced difficulties over the past twenty years, the brand absolutely controlled the camera market and still functions as a manufacturer of combined camera\printer devices. They produce various products, but Kodak is still considered one of the largest camera brands around the world.
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Leica Camera. Wetzlar, Germany
Annual Revenue: $487 Million
Year Founded: 1914
Leica is a brand that includes cameras, photographic lenses, binoculars, and rifle scopes. Among other lens-based products. Leica established itself as a camera producer in 1914 with its Ur-Leica prototype for a small 35mm camera.
The brand continued to enhance its camera models throughout the 1900s, evolving with new features like lens replacements and rangefinders. Leica also gradually expanded internationally, forming more factories for production worldwide towards the turn of the century.
Leica’s success in the camera industry is attributed to its extremely loyal customer base, who are attracted to the brand’s consistent efforts to put out high-quality products. This has led Leica to being one of the biggest camera brands globally after a hundred years in business.
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Polaroid. Minnesota, United States
Annual Revenue: $30 Million
Year Founded: 1937
Unlike many other influential imaging brands of the twenty-first century, Polaroid’s products include digital and instant film. The brand was founded in 1937 with intentions to take advantage of its Polaroid polarizing polymer.
Similar to Kodak, Polaroid had a long-running history with a great deal of turbulence. The brand had two separate bankruptcies in 2001 and 2008 but was acquired by the Impossible Project eleven years later. Since then, the brand has improved its standing in the market and revenue by playing up its nostalgia factor.
While Polaroid isn’t the absolute largest brand name when it comes to visual imaging, the technology they introduced was groundbreaking for the time, and it remains popular today. That’s why Polaroid remains one of the biggest camera brands in the world today.
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