Creator economy helps drive boom in camera sales

Breathless estimates of the size and growth of the creator economy seem to be born out by some of the retail figures that are emerging from the tail end of 2024, with camera and computer sales booming.

Back in 2023, analyst Goldman Sachs ruffled a few established industry feathers with a prediction that the creator economy could approach half-a-trillion dollars by 2027. That seemed like a crazy amount of money then, but it was all the more remarkable in that represented a mere doubling in size over the course of five years. The creator economy was already worth $250 billion in 2023.

Things since then have progressed. As Evan Shapiro wrote in his excellent Media War & Peace Substack, “This past November, the US election was decided in the Creator-sphere. Podcasts seem to have swayed more voters than broadcast, cable and “newspapers.” Two weeks later, a YouTuber slapped an old man around a ring for 90 minutes and broke Netflix.”

The huge growth in the creator economy has already become obvious at trade shows. NAB last year felt as much a creator event as it did a professional broadcast one, and the areas of the show focussed on the creator market were definitely buzzing while the broadcast ones were distinctly flat. IBC showed less of a distinction but it was definitely there if you looked hard enough.

Of course, none of this is going to make everyone rich. Goldman Sachs also estimates that there were 50 million global creators in 2023 and the number of people involved in the economy is going to grow at roughly the same rate as the income over the next few years. That works out at $5000 per person. 

This is hobbyist money territory rather than professional budgets. Indeed, the analyst reckons that only about 4% of global creators are at the professional level, which it deems to be $100,000+ per year. It reckons that 4% share will remain consistent too even as the overall ecosystem expands.

Sales figures boom

Nevertheless, people at all levels of the creator economy need kit and this activity is all leading to an upsurge in sales. Japanese retail analyst BCN-R says that camera sales boomed at the tail-end of 2024, alongside PCs and TVs which all showed a double-digit increase compared to the previous year.

Camera sales rose year-over-year in 2024, except in August, September, and October. They improved again as the holiday season approached. In December 2024, digital camera sales reached 123.7% of their level in the same month the previous year.

Canon, which has 25.5% of the market, was at 151.4% of its 2023 level. Fujifilm landed in second place with an 18.6% market share. Kenko Tokina, took full advantage of the surge in compact camera popularity to land in third place, with sales 256.8% of its 2023 level. Kodak and Sony, in fourth and fifth positions respectively, saw reduced unit sales volume in 2024 compared to the prior year.

Over on the computing side of things, sales of all units were up close to 20% year-on-year. Fujitsu with 17.9% of the market tops the figures, but its sales were down and NEC in a narrow second place (17.8%) improved by only 4%. Third place ASUS (14%) increased its sales by 20% in comparison. Apple is down in fourth place with 11.6% of the market, but managed to post spectacular growth of 67%. Fifth place Lenovo (10.9%) also posted 30% growth.

Back to cameras, and figures from another big Japanese retail association, CIPA, also indicate a positive trend. These are shipment figures rather than sales, and thus show a decline towards the end of the year as retailers are less interested in building up inventory for, say, the middle of January. The headline though is that all camera shipments were up 27% over the previous year. Sure, there’s some fine-grained detail in there (DSLR down, mirrorless up), but if shipments have translated effectively to sales without major discounting, there is definite room for industry optimism.

As to the 2024 US figures, we should know more in the next few weeks. These tend to be the province of retail analyst Circana, and the latest update regarding cameras was following Black Friday when it said that sales have been strong on the back of a social-media-driven renaissance and the new digital creator economy. “Camcorder sales, which include sales of action cameras, rose 28%, and mirrorless detachable lens cameras grew 2%,” it wrote in December. 

It’s all about the numbers

Pic: Shutterstock

We’ll soon find out if that picture remained a positive one throughout the holiday season. We’ll also see how the camera manufacturers react. Certainly there has been a lot of activity at the lower end of the market in recent months, with numerous releases piling on what would once have been distinctly pro-level features but at sub-$1000 and sub-$2000 price points.

For the manufacturers the equation is a simple one. The established media and entertainment market might still dwarf the creator economy and is estimated to be worth $3.4 trillion by the end of 2028. But even if the number of people working in it is also roughly the same, as figures suggest they are, the economics and logistics are very different. In a media company of 50 people, not everyone is going to need their own kit. Take 50 creators though, and that’s pretty much 50 cameras you can sell to them. And 50 mics. And 50 lights. And 50 laptops…

No one’s saying that the major manufacturers are going to abandon the established industry for the emerging one. But they’d be daft not to look at the amount of people involved in it, the number of people thronging the creator-oriented stands at the likes of NAB, the amount of ad dollars flowing its way and a whole lot more, and not conclude that the lower end is where a good deal of the action will be over the next few years.

tl;dr

• The creator economy, valued at $250 billion in 2023, is projected by Goldman Sachs to reach nearly $500 billion by 2027, indicating significant growth driven by increased creator activity and retail sales in cameras and computers.
• The rise in creator-driven influence was evident during the 2024 US election, with podcasts swaying voter opinions more than traditional media, illustrating the increasing power of creators in shaping public discourse.
• Japanese retail sales data from 2024 showed a marked increase in camera and PC sales, with digital camera sales hitting 123.7% of December 2023 levels, and overall computing unit sales up nearly 20%.
• While the creator economy is booming, only about 4% of global creators earn over $100,000 a year, with average earnings per creator around $5,000, suggesting that many participants are engaged as hobbyists rather than full-time professionals.