CIPA's latest data, expertly visualized by one of our forum members, doesn't shine any light onto how any particular camera model is doing, but it does show that cameras with built-in lenses are on the rise.
Image: Richard Butler
The Camera and Imaging Products Association (CIPA) has released its annual figures on camera and lens shipments for 2025, and the statistics paint an interesting picture about the state of the camera industry. As a whole, it's back to growth, but one category of cameras is making far larger strides than the others. DPReview forum user Funtaril has put together a collection of visualizations based the data, which help illustrate those changes.
Before we take a look, there are some important things to note about where the CIPA data comes from. It's an industry group that gets statistics from member companies, including all of the major camera companies currently producing cameras for the market, and most of the major lens manufacturers. However, according to the most recent data available on CIPA's site, companies such as JK Imaging (which sells the Kodak-branded Easyshare cameras that frequently top Amazon's sales charts), Viltrox, 7artisans, Laowa and a host of other popular Chinese lens producers don't participate. That means the statistics offer a useful, but not comprehensive view of the market as a whole.
Image: funtaril
With that said, perhaps the most interesting datapoint is that 2025 saw a 11% growth in digital camera shipment volumes compared to 2024, which itself was the first year to see the market expand, rather than contract, since 2020. While sales of mirrorless cameras showed moderate growth, shipments of cameras with built-in lenses grew by 30%, making them 25. 8% of the total volume of shipments for 2025. Clearly, manufacturers have taken notice of compacts' increased popularity.
It's also worth reiterating that these percentages represent how many units were shipped, rather than their value. That means that, if there was a rush to buy expensive fixed-lens cameras like the Sony RX1RIII or the Fujifilm GFX100RF, that's not skewing this particular data. And as noted before, that figure likely undersells how popular compacts have been, since it doesn't account for many of the models being sold at Costco, Amazon, or via TikTok Shop.
This is made all the more interesting by the scarce availability of the few compacts still on available on the market. It's hard not to wonder if the growth could have been even greater if cameras such as the Canon G7X Mark III were being produceds in sufficient numbers to satisfy demand.
The Canon EOS Rebel T7, the last of the entry-level DSLRs, is almost unbelievably cheap at American retail giant Costco, going for $639 in a kit with two lenses, a backpack, and an SD card.
Photo: Jeff Keller
While it's exciting to see growth in the camera market, it's also clear that DSLRs are playing a smaller and smaller role in it. Funtaril's chart shows that shipments of them dropped 31% year over year in 2025, making it their sixth year in decline. As it stands, they only made up 7. 3% of overall camera shipments last year.
According to CIPA's data, the 690,911 DSLRs shipped in 2025 were worth around r ends up paying, but the difference is stark, suggesting that a lot of the remaining sales are the $639 Rebels being sold at Costco, rather than the latest $2000+ mirrorless cameras.
Image: funtaril
It's interesting to drill down to where exactly those DSLRs were going to. The CIPA numbers show that the vast majority are going to the Americas and Europe, where they accounted for 14. 9% and 11. 7% of the cameras shipped to those regions, respectively. By contrast, they made up only 1. 2% and 1. 5% of shipments for China and Japan, respectively (though the later is hardly representative of the market as a whole; 52. 7% of its shipments were cameras with built-in lenses).
Shipments of full frame and medium format cameras only increased by about 2%
Despite 2025 seeing the release of the excellent Nikon Z5 II (and its existing low-cost rivals hitting ever lower prices on sale), shipments of full frame and medium format cameras only increased by less than 2%, and made up a slightly smaller percentage of overall cameras shipped in 2025 than the year before. While 36. 3% of the market is nothing to sneeze at, cameras with smaller sensors still made up the bulk of shipments at 63. 7%.
Image: funtaril
The story is a little different when it comes to lenses. In 2025, Funtaril shows lenses for crop sensors making up 54. 9% of shipments, with full frame and larger lenses making up 45. 1%. While crop lenses still make up the majority, the delta is much smaller. Again, this number is based on the absolute number of units, not the value, so the full frame lenses' higher per-unit value doesn't affect this data.
One last interesting, but somewhat thorny, trend revealed by the data is regarding overall lens shipments from manufacturers that are part of CIPA. Funtaril calculated the attachment rate (how many lenses were being shipped for each interchangeable lens camera being shipped), and the number of full frame and larger lenses shipped per camera has been dropping precipitously since the early 2020s (when CIPA started breaking out that data by sensor size).
Image: funtaril
It's hard to pin down exactly what that tells us for a variety of reasons; the lack of historical data means that it's always possible the numbers from 2020 and 2021 were artificially high due to people buying new lenses as they switched to mirrorless. It's also worth noting that owners of crop sensor cameras also purchase full frame lenses, though the data doesn't tell us anything about the quantities in which they do so. These factors make it hard to tell how much of the drop in shipments is due to lack of interest, or the growing might of Chinese lens makers.
It's worth taking a look at Funtaril's full post on our forum, as there are over 30 charts and graphs to dig into, showing things like how regions' buying habits have been changing over time, and breakdowns of prime lens sales versus zoom lens sales. Funtaril also posted another thread late last year that looked at cameras' lifecycles, in an attempt to predict which cameras might get an update this year.
Check out the full thread
. dpreview.com2026-2-4 05:02