The world is really on a fast pace when it comes to cameras.
Two decades ago, there were film cameras. Not many people had cameras in developing or underdeveloped countries. Cameras were an expensive purchase but operating them was tedious and expensive too. You had to buy film rolls- the film had a fixed ISO. Then you had to take it or ship it to a lab for development. Then you had to pay for the prints and save the negatives. Then you had albums which you had to store. Still, the interest in photography was steadily going up and the growth was catching up since 1975. From around 12 million cameras sold in 1975, the number grew to around 30 million cameras sold around the world in the year 2000.
The year 2000, also known as Y2K, brought a new era in the world of photography. The digital camera was invented, and this resulted in unprecedented growth in the number of cameras in the world. There were three main benefits of a digital camera. You didn't have to buy film rolls, and you could see the photos instantly. Most labs closed, though the number of photos taken went up exponentially, there were no rolls to develop, and most photos stayed digital and never got printed. People started buying cameras in large numbers and the camera market saw tremendous growth but this lasted only a decade. The digital cameras, as standalone cameras, peaked in the year 2010. In a rough estimate, around 120 cameras were sold in the year 2010. Compared to the film cameras, this was a very accelerated growth, indeed.
However, the year 2010 proved to be the next turning point in the world of cameras. Cameras started appearing on mobile phones- also known as smartphones, as a feature. This really democratized the world of photography but killed the cameras as we knew. Over the decade, from 2010 to 2020, the sale of cameras dropped by more than 85%! This totally wiped out the growth of the previous 2-3 decades. In 2020, the sale of cameras dropped to around 20 million!
However, cameras as part of smartphones put the ability to take photos in the hand of almost every other citizen by 2015. Roughly speaking, almost 4-5 billion people are able to take photos, when they want. The smartphones also made the ability to take photos very handy. Almost everyone has a phone, and hence a camera, with his almost 24x7. This wasn't the case with film cameras or digital cameras! Earlier, only one in fifty people had a camera and maybe one in 500 persons would have a camera with him or her at a particular moment but now every other person on the planet has a camera in hand almost every moment.
From around 40-50 million cameras in the world in the year 1975, today there are around 10 billion cameras in various homes in the form of the current smartphones in use by family members, some old smartphones lying around in cabinets, real cameras- compact, mirrroless and SLRs, and security cameras. You will be surprised to know that there are around 1,000,000,000 cameras used by governments around the world in public for surveillance!
These days, always keep smiling, because you may know it or not, you are on some camera!
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