Yu Yoshida is analyst at Credit Suisse and he debunked the mirrorless hype in his latest Interview with Reuters. The main reason why mirrorless isn’t really growing anymore is that “buyers put connectivity above picture quality” and:
Consumers don’t want to connect cameras to phones, analysts say; they want a single interface that can instantly upload photographs to social networking sites such as Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc.
Mirrorless isn’t catching up in USA and Europe because “consumers tend to equate image quality with size and heft“
And in the long term only Canon-Nikon and Sony are likely to stay in the digital camera business.
Mirrorlessrumors opinion:
I am neither a well paid analyst nor a marketing expert. But all I can say is that it’s years now that I hear that small manufacturers like Pentax, Olympus and so on will die. And it never happens. Probably because analyst tend to focus on numbers and do not see the full picture. Olympus for example keeps the digital camera business alive also because the profitable medical business can take advantage of the sensor and imaging technology coming from the camera division. And than there is that Japanese culture that doesn’t fit with the western idea that what’s unprofitable has to be sold or closed.
My guess, the Reuters analyst is plain wrong with his forecast :)