Canon took a slim lead last year in digital camera sales, according to research company IDC, thanks to booming demand for high-end models.
IDC tallied Canon with worldwide shipments of 12.63 million cameras, 17.1 percent of the market. Sony came in second with 12.32 million, or 16.7 percent, and Kodak was third, with 8.71 million, or 11.8 percent. Overall shipments were 74 million units. Those figures include both point-and-shoot cameras and more complex single-lens reflex, or SLR, models, the first time IDC has included SLR cameras in its annual sales tally, IDC analyst Chris Chute said.
Once-expensive specialty items largely used by professional photographers, digital SLRs turned into a consumer item last year with the introduction of sub-$1,000 models such as Canon's Digital Rebel. Canon's aggressive pricing and marketing for SLRs gave the company the overall lead and helped make SLRs the hot new market in digital imaging, Chute said.
News source: C|Net News.com
