A Nikkei report shows although worldwide market shares of Canon, Fuji and Olympus increased last year, sales of digital camera dropped to 20.29 million, a decline of 22% year-on-year.

Canon leads the market with a 40.5% share, up 3.9%. Nikon and Sony fall to second and third place, respectively, at 19.1% and 17.7 %. Fuji has a 5.1% market share, while Olympus has 2.8%.The five companies accounted for 85.2 percent of the total market share.

(Photo: VCG)

The prevalence of smartphones has impacted negatively on several industries, from calculators to MP3 players to GPS devices and sound recorders.

In January, Canon chairman and chief executive Fujio Mitarai warned that the digital camera industry would continue to decline of up to 50% by 2021.

Despite the worrying news, there may always be a need to buy a professional digital camera between professionals and photography enthusiasts.

At the same time, camera makers are taking measures to revive the product, including pushing into the high-end camera market and continuing to develop new features that appeal to more users. For instance, the Canon PowerShot G7X Mark III is able to stream live videos directly to YouTube.

(Compiled by Yu Lidong)