14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday, South Korean electronics maker Samsung, announced the unification of its Digital Imaging Business Division with the Wireless Business Division in an attempt to become one of the market leaders on the mirrorless camera segment by 2015 and launch better camera phones.
In a recent statement for ET News, the company said that “We will transplant the brand, sales networks, software competency and manufacturing competitiveness of the Wireless Business Division into the Camera Business Division, and integrate the technical know-how of the two business divisions into competency for differentiating our smartphones.”
With the compact camera descending sales trend, the mirrorless segment is on the rise especially on the Asian market where Japan solely holds 16% of the entire mirrorless camera sales around the world.
Due to this trend, many optics manufacturers announced their intention to shift their focus on the mirrorless segment for the upcoming year. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what Samsung will bring to the table.
A month ago, in a presentation for the Samsung Analyst Day, the company announced that it was developing a new APS-C sensor for their NX mirrorless camera series, which will replace the current 20.3MP sensor used in the past few years.
At the same time, a new smartphone sensor is also in the works. The 16MP ISOCELL sensor comes with 1.12um pixels and it's said to have a wide dynamic range and auto focus capabilities.
In addition to that, a new Samsung mirrorless camera model has been spotted back in November on Samsung's support website, named NXF1. While no other info has been disclosed since then, rumors say that this new model might be Samsung's first full frame mirrorless camera expected to be revealed sometime in 2014.
What do you think about Samsung's statement? Could they become a market leader in such a short time? Let us know your opinion in the comments section below.