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Azhar bin Zainal
GS40798
Workshop for S-Curves (Camera)
S-curves visually depict how a product, service, technology or
business progresses and
evolves over time. S-curves can be viewed on an incremental
level to map product evolutions
and opportunities, or on a macro scale to describe the evolution
of businesses and industries.
On a product, service, or technology level, S-curves are usually
connected to “market adoption”
since the beginning of a curve relates to the birth of a new
market opportunity, while the end
of the curve represents the death, or obsolescence of the
product, service, or technology in the
market. Usually the end of one S-curve marks the emergence of a
new S-curve – the one that
displaces it camera. If we look at the history of various
product markets the basic rise and fall
of market volumes are predictable when they have been impacted
by fundamental
technological shifts – in the case of cameras it was of seismic
proportions going from film to
digital. When any kind of ‘game changing’ technology takes hold
in any market there are initial
and dramatic volume surges as consumers leave their current
technology and adopt the newone
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On 24 January 1544 mathematician and instrument maker Reiners
Gemma Frisius of Leuven
University used one to watch a solar eclipse, publishing a
diagram of his method in De Radio
Astronimica et Geometrico in the following year. In 1558
Giovanni Batista della Porta was the
first to recommend the method as an aid to drawing.
The first camera that was small and portable enough to be
practical for photography was
envisioned by Johann Zahnin 1685
A similar revolution in SLR design began in 1933 with the
introduction of the Ihagee Exakta,
a compact SLR which used 127 roll film
The Leica's immediate popularity spawned a number of
competitors, most notably the Contax
(introduced in 1932), and cemented the position of 35 mm as the
format of choice for high-end
compact cameras.
Kodak got into the market with the Retina I in 1934, which
introduced the 135 cartridge used
in all modern 35 mm cameras
The fledgling Japanese camera industry began to take off in 1936
with the Canon 35 mmrangefinder, an improved version of the 1933
Kwanon prototype.
If we look the chart that was we see that camera sales were
trending up at a reasonable rate
(albeit with a few bumps along the way) until 1998 and remained
reasonably flat when digital
cameras were introduced in 1999. Then see a very fast uptake
rate of the new technology that
resulted in a complete market change over to digital cameras by
2005. This was really driven
by the sales of compact digital cameras. This indicates to that
the new technology opened up
digital photography to a huge new audience.
The market kept growing strongly and reached its peak in 2010
and has been in sharp decline
since. It now is only slightly higher than the market was back
in 1998. This indicates to thatthe pent up demand represented by
the ownership of film cameras is completely used up and
the camera market is now in a mature state. This type of demand
curve is very typical of
industries that have been impacted by a ‘break-through’
technology that fundamentally
changed the market. We can see strong growth pretty much
straight through to 2010. This
growth helped to fuel the prolific increase in the number of
camera models in the market.
In view that the peak market volumes experienced between 2008
and 2011 are never coming
back because the pent up demand of film cameras that drove those
markets is now gone. The
switch from film to digital cameras is basically over
With the camera market starting its sharp decline in 2012
Nikon’s offerings would have been
under price pressure right out of the gate.
Manufacturers need to learn to stop putting new features on
cameras that don’t really add any
value for buyers. And, if nothing else they need to make sure
those features actually work up
to the expectations of customers.
At the end of the day we need to remember a simple truth…it is
the photographer behind the
camera that creates the image. The camera is simply a tool to
capture it. Having the latest and
