Thanks to wedding industry, India bucks slump in global digital camera market, says Sigma CEO

Even as smartphones have dented the growth prospects of digital cameras and accessories globally, India remains an outlier, thanks to the exponential growth of the country’s wedding photography industry, says Kazuto Yamaki, CEO of the Japanese lens and camera maker Sigma Corporation.

In an exclusive interview with Fortune India, Kazuto said the sale of Sigma’s camera lenses in India has grown from 12,000 units when he took over as the company’s global CEO in 2012 to 33,000 in 2024. In comparison, the global digital camera market shrank about one-third from about 20 million camera units to less than 7 million units during the period, adversely impacting the sale of interchangeable lenses also as Sigma lenses are used in other camera brands like Nikon, Canon, etc.

“In 2012, the market size of interchangeable lenses was about 30 million units per year, but now it’s about 10 million units per year. So basically, the market has been shrinking continuously,” he said.

Kazuto admitted that smartphones affected the interchangeable DSLR, mirrorless camera, and interchangeable lens market in a big way. “There are two reasons. First, they improved image quality, and many people are satisfied with the image quality created by smartphones. The other reason is that the unit price of smartphones has gone up quite considerably during this period, so there was competition for wallet share. People have limited budgets, so they have to decide whether to use their budget for a phone or a camera, and they have been choosing the phone, unfortunately. So, the market size has been shrinking,” he explained.

A growing market in a country with India’s population has hence become very important not just for Sigma but also for all the world’s leading camera brands, he said.

Sigma markets over 200 SKUs of some 80 products in India. “We make Sigma-branded products, lenses for our cameras, and we also modify lenses for Sony, Nikon, and Canon. We change the software or circuit boards inside and the joint parts, so if you include all modifications, it’s probably more than 200–250 SKUs,” he said.

One of the key changes Kazuto brought in after he took over as CEO was to position Sigma as the best brand for the wedding photography industry, a shift from the earlier focus on photojournalists, newspapers, hobbyists, students, and wildlife enthusiasts. Compared to OEM lenses, Sigma lenses were reasonably priced and hence allowed faster cost recovery for wedding photographers. “We have continuous new customers. India has the youngest population in the world, with a high potential to get married. That’s a huge number,”, an Indian representative of Sigma said.

Kazuto believes that the market is not going to disappear as long as people want beautiful images. “Even though the market has shrunk, people are still interested in lenses. Lifestyle magazines and YouTubers still cover cameras and lenses. Camera lenses remain symbolic and aspirational products, especially for creatives. I don’t believe this market will disappear, even in the AI era”, he says. “My goal is to become the best brand in this industry, the most respected and beloved by customers. If we achieve that, we can survive”.