BCN Trends: Full frame in Japan for the last 12 months

I originally wasn't going to comment on this trend report from BCN, but so many have been talking about it, I felt it was a good time to weigh in with a little reality.

First of all, Sony has excellently delivered two new cameras in the last 12 months; the A7R III and the A7 III, and pushed down the A7 II and A7R II and also the A7 and A7R in price and has continued to sell all three model versions. They are moving aggressively with fine products and a clear strategy in this market.  We see that Sony has increased their sales volume correspondingly.  Meanwhile, over much of this same period of time, neither Canon nor Nikon has released any new full frame camera models.  Even the relatively new 6D Mark II was announced in June of 2017, and shipping in July of 2017 well before the October 2017 date of this graph.  It's very usual for new products released by any manufacturer to have a bump up in sales volume once the units start shipping.  The Z7 started shipping in late September, the EOS R in late October.  Both releases are relatively new, and also the months of the greatest Sony growth are the ones where no new products are shipping from Canon or Nikokn.  Granted, Sony's releases have been very solid and impressive performers.

I have read breathless reporting that Sony has crushed Nikon and Canon as far as sales in Japan for the last 12 months.  Well, no, they haven't even crushed Nikon; the overall sales percentages for the rolling year are around 39%, 30% and 29% for Canon, Nikon, and Sony respectively, and again, this is when Sony has been very aggressive still selling the A7 original series for heavily discounted prices and being the only manufacturer to release new camera bodies.  Also during this period of time, Canon's EOS R was only shipping for a week, and Nikon hadn't yet shipped out the Z6 cameras.  BCN reports on sales receipt data, so preorders would get tagged when the units ship, not when the order was placed.  So all pre-orders were reported with the EOS R, none were reported for the Z6.  It will take months before we get a good picture of what the full frame landscape will turn into, and even then, in 2019 we will see new releases by Canon and possibly Nikon, further complicating the picture.