Sony overtakes Canon in BCN Awards’ ILM category

It’s been six years since Sony ranked first in BCN Awards’ category for the top interchangeable lens mirrorless (ILM) brands. However, Sony took back the top spot this year.

For most of the decade, Canon and Olympus led the category. But, according to the BNC Awards list, Sony is not the top brand in the category. BNC calculates its ranking based on point-of-sale data all across Japan.

Sony overtakes Canon and Olympus

For most of the past decade, Olympus had a hard hold on the interchangeable lens mirrorless market. It held as much as 36.6% market share. However, Canon passed Olympus in 2019, obtaining a market share of 31.6% of interchangeable lens mirrorless cameras sold. At this time, Olympus held 23.5% and Sony’s 22.7% of the market share. In 2020, Canon dominated the category, holding 30.9% of sales. Also, Sony surpassed Olympus, owning 25.9% to Olympus’ 23.4%.

Now, Sony sits at the top, owning 27.4% of the market. Canon dropped to 23.8%, while Olympus sits steady, still holding onto 23.4%. What’s notable here is that while Sony did increase its hold on the market by 2%, Canon dropped drastically by 7%. Additionally, it’s notable that the three company’s hold on the market is lesser this year than in previous years. Neither company broke past 30%. This points to other lens brands gaining success in the market.

Canon tops other BNC Awards categories

In the fixed-lens and DSLR categories, Canon still ranks first. Canon dominated the fixed-lens category for the last decade, except in 2019. Nikon took first place but fell to second in 2020. Now in 2021, Nikon has dropped out of third place, being overtaken by Sony and Fujifilm. In the DSLR category, Canon holds 51.9% of the market. Nikon comes in second with 44.8% and Ricoh is ranked third with just 3%.

You can check out the BCN Awards post here.

Image courtesy: BCN

Sean Berry
Sean Berry
Sean Berry is Videomaker's managing editor.

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