Canon leads digital camera sales

I find camera rivally both interesting and pointless (who cares what brand you have, as long as it takes good pictures). However, as a canon user, in both DSLR (20D) and point and shot (ixus 55), I will brag about the following statistics.

Of major interest though is that Canon has almost 50% of the DSLR market (most microstock users use DSLR cameras due to higher quality and more control). Nikon comes in second with 33% to leave the other 6 or so companies with about 15% between them (not much).

Also of interest is the DSLR market is growing at 30% per annum. Huge growth in at a time when everyone wants small products (just look at how thin and small mobiles are now).

Article:
Canon leads in digital camera shipments in 2006, according to IDC
Canon Inc., Tokyo, Japan, took the top market share in global digital camera shipments in 2006, and Samsung Electronics, Seoul, South Korea, jumped to fifth place from ninth a year ago, Framington, Mass.-based researcher IDC said.
Canon shipped 19.7 million digital cameras in 2006, accounting for 18.7 percent of the overall market. Canon's shipments jumped 23.3 percent from 2005, accoridng to IDC.
Industrywide digital camera shipments in 2006 rose 14.5 percent to 106 million units from a year earlier, driven by the strong popularity of DSLR models geared toward photo enthusiasts and professionals and growing demand in emerging markets, IDC said. DSLR shipments grew 39 percent to 5 million units last year.
Sony Corp., Tokyo, Japan, was No. 2 in the market with a 15.8 percent share, up from 15.2 percent in 2005, benefiting from its entry into the DSLR market, according to IDC. Eastman Kodak Co., the only U.S. company among the top five digital camera makers, ranked third with 10 percent, a drop from its 14.2 percent share a year earlier. Japan-based Olympus Corp., which came in fourth, trimmed its share to 8.6 percent from 9.8 percent in 2005.
"The big winner in 2006 was Samsung, who displaced Nikon and became the fifth-largest seller of digital cameras in the world," said Christopher Chute, an IDC analyst.
Samsung expanded its market share to 7.8 percent in 2006, a huge jump from the 3.8 percent it had a year earlier. Its shipments more than doubled, IDC said.
Nikon Corp., Tokyo, Japan, the world's second-biggest maker of professional cameras after Canon, ranked No. 6 in the overall digital camera market with a 7.6 percent market share in 2006.
Canon also dominated the growing DSLR market, securing a 46.7 percent share in 2006, with its shipments rising 30.7 percent from a year earlier. But its share was trimmed from the 49.5 percent it had in 2006 amid increased competition from rivals. Nikon secured the No. 2 position in DSLRs with a 33 percent market share. Its shipments jumped 35.9 percent. Sony, which bought the DSLR unit of Konica Minolta Holdings shipped 326,240 DSLRs in 2006, accounting for 6.2 percent of the market.