Are Smartphones replacing Cameras?

Times change, as do access to goods and consumption habits. With phones evolving into smartphones, embracing more and more features once delegated to other devices, the question becomes relevant.

Our analysis starts from the recent video by James Eagle, known on social networks such as LinkedIn for his work on Visualization and Crossing of Statistical Data. In his most recent work, he graphically presents the chronological evolution of the sales volume of cameras and smartphones.



The video begins in the 1950s, at a time when cameras represented social status, as they were complex and expensive devices. In this decade and the two more following, the so-called “30 Glorious Years”, were marked with a boom in the consumer goods market and the massification of goods such as household appliances, automobiles, and equipment previously prohibited from general access by the population, such as cameras.

Smaller, easier-to-handle equipment is multiplying in stores, shop windows and homes all over the world. Photographing acquires a sentimental character, a form of making memories. It is the companion of family dinners, holidays, Christmas or birthdays. All of this explains the exponential evolution in units sold per year from the 1960s onwards.

The 90's introduces a new player in the market, digital cameras, with new opportunities to save or print photographs, becoming an attraction and growing in sales to the detriment of conventional cameras.

In 2007, the emergence of the iPhone and the evolution of smartphones brought the possibility of converging the camera and filming in an object that already accompanied consumers in their day-to-day – the cell phone. The object of consumer desire has changed, bringing changes in the annual sales of cameras. From the most special moments to the most common of everyday life, anyone with a mobile phone in their hands can capture quality videos and photos. Adding to the equation, social networks have brought new ways of enjoying visual content, in a digital sharing format.

However, it is important here to highlight a common denominator among consumers: fans and photography professionals. Although this is an authentic niche market, the truth is that these are people who, regardless of technological advances, will continue to be interested in buying cameras. The discussion, therefore, moves on to a secondary question: Is it possible, at present, to compare the evolution in the sale of smartphones and cameras taking into account the interests of those who buy one and the other?

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