Compacts vs. Smartphones

Brianna Woyach

Mr. Reuter

Economics A2

6 December 2016

Compacts Vs. Smartphones

Cameras are a great tool to have, whether it’s going on vacation, going to a family gathering, or just relaxing at home, you can use it to take a snapshot of almost any moment in time and be able to cherish it forever. Let’s take a look back in 1888 when George Eastwood created the first compact camera in which he called the “Kodac”. Eastwood created a camera that was easier for everyone to take on-the-go so they could later print those photos and keep them as memories since it was created with a film developing and printing service. After his invention of the Kodac, many more digital cameras were later created by brands such as Philips, Pentax, Samsung, and so on. The popularity of these digital cameras then increased over time resulting in an increase in demand for them.

Just as compact cameras were becoming more and more popular, the first ever camera phone was invented in 2000 in Japan which automatically sparked interest in millions of people around the world. As the amount of popularity rose for camera phones, or, smartphones, the amount of sales for compact cameras declined since people lacked interest. In 2007 the amount of camera shipments for compact cameras reached its peak at 149MM, although, in 2008 the amount of smartphone units shipped was more than the amount of compact cameras shipped. The amount of smartphone units shipped then increased dramatically in 2009, while the amount of compact cameras shipped gradually decreased over time which caused an increase in the supply of smartphones.

Later in the first nine months of 2014, global compact camera shipments from Japanese manufacturers dropped by a third. According to BT’s article titled,  “Smartphone Cameras Vs Compacts: Is it Still Worth Buying a Compact Camera?”, Hannah Bouckley stated, “ The biggest drop saw fixed-lens cameras – compacts – fall 38.1% year on year. The larger DSLR shipments fell 23.7%, while in volume terms sales of compact system cameras rose by 10.5%”. Since the demand of compacts have dropped over the years, the costs have dropped as well. It’s depressing knowing how greatly smartphone cameras impacted compacts. It’s even more depressing knowing that compacts actually have a lot of positive tools that smartphones don’t have such as picture quality, lens versatility, manual control, and cost. Although, since smartphones include texting and social media, people can share your photos within the click of a button and therefore customers substitute smartphones for compacts.

It may seem like compacts are hardly used anymore but they are most definitely used by photographers and are used a lot at family events, weddings, vacations, holidays, and so on. Smartphones just come in the lead with their high speed sharing, or who knows, maybe people are just too lazy to drive all the way to the store to print their photos from their compact camera. Overall, cameras have made a huge impact on the economy and they will continue to impact our economy as new cameras get invented in further years.

Works Cited:

"Worldwide Smartphone vs Standalone Compact Camera Shipments." MyBroadband Worldwide Smartphone vs Standalone Compact Camera Shipments Comments. Rudolph Muller, 4 Dec. 2012. Web. 07 Dec. 2016.

@sonyalpharumors. "Photokina Agency Debunks Some Myths: Premium Digital Camera Market Is Increasing. - Sonyalpharumors." Sonyalpharumors. N.p., 05 June 2014. Web. 07 Dec. 2016.

@bt_uk. "Smartphone or Camera? Is It Still worth Buying a Compact Camera?" BT.com. Hannah Bouckley, 10 Oct. 2016. Web. 07 Dec. 2016.

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