Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
I think many people don't quite understand that outside the United States, the digital camera markets are very different.
I recently went overseas to China, South Korea, and Japan.
In China, by far the most popular SLR camera was Nikon (pronounced "nee-kone") for the very few people who actually had SLRs. We're talking both film and digital SLRs here.
In Korea, I kid you not, about 80% of the college-age population owned a DSLR. Normally I feel out of the ordinary carrying an SLR, but when I was walking around Seoul I actually felt like I was the *norm*. Granted, the vast majority of these cameras are the entry level XTs and D50s with the kit lenses or consumer-level super zooms, but I was still shocked by how many DSLRs there were. Nikon was again easily the most popular brand.
In Japan I didn't see many people with DSLRs, but asking the locals and stuff resulted in me learning that Nikon was, in fact, the most popular.
Another weird thing is that in China and South Korea Samsung P&S cameras are actually quite popular. There are tons of beautiful Samsung billboards in lots of places and they're popular because they're elegantly designed yet modern and a fashion statement.
Your observation about Korean market is quite correct; however, some corrections should be made. Although I, too, saw most of people carrying Nikon cameras, Canon has been No.1 seller in the Korean Dslr market. It's the same case in where I currently live; I live in tourist town in North America. In past 3 years, I realized that Dslrs have been getting poplular as tons of tourists started carrying around dslrs unlike some years before. Most of them have Nikon cameras yet the No.1 market leader, in terms of sales, still is Canon. Nonetheless, it's impressive that Nikon has managed to make it this far especially beating Canon in Japan, although the market in Japan is small.
Another thing is that photography has become a norm in Korea. It has been that case since this personal picture based blog site called
www.cyworld.com became some kind of social phenomenon (
Cyworld now has 20 million registered users and the poplulation of Korea is about 45 million. Isn't that amazing? Soon, more than half of Koreans will be registered to that site!) As in my case as well as millions others, people started getting one of those compact dslrs so they could update their pages. Some were okay with those compact cameras but many of those who got themselves into photography started to notice Dslrs and the difference it make. Thus the dslr market in Korea has been growing rapidly.
Also, in Korea, Samsung has been getting popular in recent years as they started making decent products(It has only been a few years since Samsung started making digital cameras) and that their serive center can be found in everywhere. In the end, Samsung is a Korean company: no wonder it's popluar in Korea. On the other hand, Samsung is doing well in China as Samsung earned its status of being a premium brand.
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