February was another month of ups and downs for the digital cameras market in Great Britain. The sales of compact cameras were down by -9.7% in volume since last year, which is a result in line with the trend over the last year, when double digit decline looked like the norm. For the first time in six months however, the value performance was better than the volume – declining by only -5.5% on last year. This is due to outstanding results for the super zoom and bridge categories – growing in volume by 38% and 54% respectively.
The DSLR sales suffered further from the shortages that affected the market in Q4 last year with a decline of -17.6% in volume and even worse -25.1% in value. However, Compact System Cameras were the star of the month with 5.8% volume and 12.8% value growth in February 2012. The stronger value result was enhanced by recent launches of higher end devices in the category that boosted the average price.
Nothing new on the Camcorder market front – sales were down 46% in units but HD still among the very few categories in growth with 6.7% increase on last February. Maybe an anticipated outcome of Kodak’s recent announcement to pull out of the pocket camcorder (and camera) business, is that this category for the first time in the last two months, declined at stronger rate than the traditional camcorder.
Zhelya Dancheva, GfK Senior Account Manager.
