German Imaging Trends – Lenses and Tripods see Value Increases

19. July 2010
Germany, Imaging/ Photo

Marion Knoche, GfK Global Director Imaging/Photo analysed global and national imaging market trends at the Annual Conference of the German Photo Industry Association (PIV) held in Lübeck, Germany in early May. Rapidly growing market niches, outperformers and price stability were all key topics.

Imaging Market

The German imaging market, already at a very high level, is continuing to move ahead. German dealers were able to generate real growth and Marion Knoche's offered encouragement to the markets, commenting that "there has been an improvement in added value”. The German imaging business entered Photokina 2010 with a 3% growth in value terms over the first two months – despite a -15% decline in volume. In comparison: in January and February, the European market fell in value (-8%) and volume (-13%). The good news for the German dealers is that thee downwards price spiral has bottomed out. While in February 2009 the average digital compact camera cost 148 Euros, by February 2010 the average price was 159 Euros. The situation in Germany is similar on DSLR cameras. On average in February 2009, the dealer collected 642 Euros for a camera with changeable lens, while in February 2010, the equivalent figure was 659 Euros.     

The current developments in the market were among the issues discussed at the Conference.

"Currently consumers are in a positive state of mind" explained Marion Knoche. "Worries about possibly being made unemployed have declined once again". Outperformers – i.e. product groups which are performing particularly well – comprised Lenses and Tripods in the first two months of the year.

Volume sales of lenses only went up 3% in volume but sales in value terms were up by 21%; volume sales of tripods declined -11%, but went up in value by 11%. The Photo Printer business was less satisfactory (sales -45% in volume and -40% in value). Consumers preferred to buy multifunctional devices which can be used for many different purposes (3% growth in value, -2% in volume). They continue to be of considerable importance in terms of their share of total added value. Over the first quarter of the year as a whole, in addition to lenses and tripods, there was also growth in the sales of film scanners and memory cards.

Prints still declining

With regards to prints as a whole. sales of which continue to decline, the number made at kiosks is still growing. The German drugstore chains of this world such as Rossmann and Schlecker have opted for an extensive re-equipment program. If the installed base of kiosks in use in February 2008 is given an index number of 100, by the start of 2010, the drugstore chains were well over 200, while the technical superstores were at around 140 and photo dealers at about 110, with currently about 13,000 kiosks in operation. These figures need to be carefully considered. Among the specialist photo dealers, little has been happening. Admittedly though, firstly the camera specialists were well equipped with terminals before 2008 and secondly a kiosk location in a hypermarket cannot automatically be assumed to have a high throughput of prints.

Video function is standard

Sales trends have been positive in the small but attractive market for vertical-shape multimedia camcorders which have won a good deal of market share from their fully mature equivalents. "Vertical-shape camcorders benefited” from particularly high sales in December," stated Marion Knoche.  The British were well ahead of  in the area of digital system cameras (DSCS) which in December achieved a 10% market share for cameras with changeable lenses. In unit terms, 84,000 chocolate bar camcorders finished up under Christmas trees in the U.K. while in Germany it was only 30,000. Additional competition for the traditional camcorder; video-enabled smartphones which are slowly driving the more simple camera-phones out of the market. An HD movie function has also become an important feature of digital compact cameras. Currently 33% of all digital cameras are equipped with this feature. That they account for 52% of the value shows the key importance of this feature as a selling point – irrespective of whether it actually gets used or not.

The Swiss ahead of Germany

Digital camera penetration at household level was around 67% in February.  In this respect, Germany was behind Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, the U.K. and Switzerland. In addition, the Swiss demonstrated that even a saturated market is still able to absorb more cameras. Marion Knoche regards replacement purchases as realistic after three years – because the new generations of cameras are equipped with  many new features.

In terms of "personal penetration", Germany is ranked third after the U.K. and Switzerland – one German in three already has a digital camera and nearly one in ten already have a DSLR.

DSLRs triumph

GfK's forecasts for the world camera market in 2010 are encouraging with analysts anticipating a continued increase in sales of digital cameras of about 2% to reach 133 million. Within these figures, the share accounted for by cameras with changeable lenses is expected to rise from 9% to 10%. The share accounted for by DSLRs within Germany in February was 14%, but also represented 41% of the value of all digital camera sales.

During the first quarter (compared with the same time last year), cameras, memory cards, lenses and film scanners were among the best-selling products in the imaging market.