Smartphones hit camera sales

New Delhi, April 28: Smartphones have proved disruptive for one more gadget in the digital space - cameras. According to an Assocham paper, despite heavy discounts, the sales of digital cameras have fallen 35 percent while at the same time, those of smartphones have increased by over 120 percent over the last one year. "Smartphone sales almost more than doubled from 44 million units in 2013 to 100 million units in 2016. The volume of smartphone sales is expected to touch 165 million units by 2017," said the paper by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham). "Affordable smartphones in the range of Rs.4,000-10,000 account for 78 percent of all smartphone sales and are equipped with similar features which one may get in sub-Rs.10,000 cameras. Thus the craze of digital cameras have almost vanished," said Assocham secretary general D.S. Rawat while releasing the paper.

"Most of the respondents said that the biggest advantage of clicking pictures with smartphones is that they can be shared instantly with friends and family; a feature absent with most of the cameras," the paper said.

Smartphones are increasingly becoming the choice for a large number of people as more consumers are relying on their smartphones than digital cameras for both -- photos and video, it said.

The compact camera market is going to keep shrinking in the coming years, the Assocham paper said.

During 2010-11, 75 percent of the total camera sales in India constituted of these point and shoot cameras, and the rest of SLR cameras. But in 2015, this percentage dropped to just 30 percent, and it is expected to fall to 10-15 percent by 2017, it said.

The three major camera brands -- Sony, Canon and Nikon -- have roped in Bollywood stars as their brands ambassadors to reach out to the tier II and III cities. The Indian market is currently flooded with a range of camera-ebled smartphones priced below Rs.5,000, the paper said.

"There has been a subsequent rise in the demand of smartphones in India in the last one year. The youth in the country share and upload photographs online, giving rise to the need for smartphones," Rawat said.