Compact Camera Sales More Than Doubled Last Year in Japan

It is well known that compact cameras are very popular right now. However, new reporting from Japanese retail analyst BCN+R sheds more light on just how popular cameras with integrated lenses are right now.

As PetaPixel reported last month, many of the best-selling cameras in Japan in 2025 were compact cameras. At major Japanese photo retailer Map Camera, the Kodak PixPro FZ55 was the best-selling camera of the year, with the Fujifilm X100VI and Ricoh GR-series models not far behind. As Yodobashi’s 24 retail locations and its online store, the Fujifilm X100VI was number one but far from the only compact camera with a built-in lens to make the cut. The point is that compact cameras, ranging from very affordable models like the Kodak PixPro FZ55 to pricier models like the Fujifilm X100VI and new Ricoh GR IV are extremely popular.

In fact, as BCN+R explains, compact camera sales increased a staggering 127.4% year-over-year. Of all camera sales captured by BCN+R’s robust Japanese retail network, 72.6% of units sold were cameras with built-in lenses, 24% of which were Kodak-branded models like the PixPro FZ55. PetaPixel reported on Kodak’s big BCN Awards victory last month.

Fujifilm was second with 13.9% market share, followed by Kenko Tokina in third (13.3%). All other companies combined, which includes Ricoh Pentax, Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, Sony, and more, comprised 48.8% of integrated lens camera sales in 2025 in BCN+R’s data.

BCN+R speculates that a big part of compact cameras’ appeal is their ease of use, driven mainly by their small, lightweight designs and simple functionality. While high-end interchangeable lens cameras are significantly more powerful and flexible as photographic tools, they are also bigger, often pricier, and almost always more complicated to use. Compact cameras have broad appeal.

Of all digital camera sales captured by BCN+R, 26.5% of them are interchangeable lens mirrorless cameras. In fact, mirrorless ILC sales dropped to 93.5% of 2024’s value. Even though the overall digital camera market grew in 2025, the ILC segment shrank, at least at Japanese retailers tracked by BCN+R. As for the remaining 0.9% of the digital camera market? Well, DSLRs are woefully unpopular these days.

Although the photo industry itself is much smaller than it was a decade ago due to the encroachment of smartphones in the casual photo space, recent booms in compact cameras have demonstrated that people, especially younger ones, still want to have a dedicated camera. It’s unclear what recent patterns mean for the photo industry in the long term, but for now, the bleeding has stopped. In fact, last October was the best month for camera and lens shipments in the past three years.

As PetaPixel will discuss in detail in a story tomorrow, overall camera shipments in 2025 were up 11.2 percentage points year-over-year. CIPA’s newly published data shows that 2.4 million cameras with built-in lenses were shipped worldwide last year, up from 1.8 million in 2024.

Image credits: Header photo created using an asset licensed via Depositphotos.