Nikon Corp. sees potential in India to become its third largest market for cameras, but it has no plans yet to have a manufacturing base in the country.
“Today, India ranks fifth behind the United States, China, Japan and Germany in the digital camera space,” Keizo Fujii, managing director of Nikon Singapore Pte, told BQ Prime. “But we expect the country to overtake Japan and Germany to become the third largest soon.”
The bullish outlook of Fujii, who is on a visit to India for the launch of its latest mirrorless camera, comes amid a global economic downturn. India does stand out among the world’s biggest economies, with Europe hovering on the brink of potential recession and U.S. growth slowing.
The local subsidiary of the Japanese company expects 11% volume-driven growth, touching the Rs 1,000-crore revenue mark in the current financial year. The company closed fiscal 2023 with top-line growth of Rs 900 crore, up from Rs 765 crore last year. It also surpassed the pre-Covid revenue of Rs 820 crore.
“Last fiscal was the first full year without any pandemic fear, so the growth was much higher,” said Sajjan Kumar, managing director at Nikon India Pvt.
In fiscal 2023, the industry grew 30%, driven by the high-end category, as compared with the company’s 17% growth in turnover, Kumar said. “But now, (the) recovery is very much back to normal, so we expect Nikon to grow at par with the industry in the coming years.”
The company is betting big on high-end mirrorless cameras to drive the next phase of growth. Now, full-frame mirrorless cameras—which do not require a reflex mirror—dominate over the digital single-lens reflex or DSLR cameras, contributing roughly about 80% of sales, according to Kumar.
In the last two Covid-hit years, a new category of content creators, YouTubers and vloggers has emerged apart from professionals, Kumar said. They start from a smart device, but migrate to a proper camera with even high-end lenses to differentiate their content.
At the industry level, sales of full-frame grew 43% year-on-year, he said. “We aim to tap this segment in a big way.”
The company has nine mirrorless cameras, four DSLRs and two compact cameras at a price range of Rs 10,000–Rs 4.77 lakh. On Thursday, it expanded its mirrorless range with the launch of Nikon Z8, which is priced at Rs 3.43 lakh.
“Z8, with its top-notch features like 12-bit internal 8K video recording and burst rate of up to 120 frames per second, has been designed to cater to videographers and photographers across diverse genres like sports, fashion, landscape, wildlife, weddings and cinematography,” Kumar said.
Like all its products, Nikon Z8 will also be imported from Bangkok. The company has no plans currently to set up a manufacturing base in India. “That’s because the overall market is still low at around 3 lakh units worth around Rs 3,000 crore,” Kumar said.
Nikon, with a market share of 30%, competes with the likes of Sony India, Fujifilm Corp., Samsung India, Panasonic Life Solutions India Pvt., Canon India Pvt. and others. Currently, Nikon has 140 experience zones across the country, all in shop-in-shop format. Its products are also available at 1,500 points of sale.
