The average retail price for consumer digital still cameras (DSCs) in the UK, Germany, US, Japan and China in December hit US$366, having risen for the third consecutive month.
The price increase was mainly because CMOS-based DSC average retail pricing rose to US$431 during early December, helping boost DSC's overall average retail price. In addition, vendors have been reducing their new DSC projects as demand for DSCs has been gradually replaced by smartphones, according to Digitimes Research's latest findings.
DSC models that have been released for over nine months are excluded from the data.
The number of the available CMOS-based DSC models from seven major vendors in the five countries was only 66 in December, down from 136 in the same month a year ago.
New DSCs that were launched for the fourth quarter of 2014 from first-tier vendors were Canon's PowerShot G7X, Panasonic's Lumix DMC-LX100 and Olympus' Stylus 1s. To create clear differentiation from smartphone cameras, the PowerShot G7X and Lumix DMC-LX100 both features 1-inch or above sensors.
