The Camera and Imaging Products Association (CIPA) released its forecasts for global digital camera shipments in 2005. Digital camera shipments are expected to grow 20.8% from the previous year to 72.2 million units in 2005. Digicam shipments are expected to continue to increase broadly, but the growth rate is projected to drop by about 17 points, compared to that in 2004. Compared to 2003, 2004 global shipments of digital cameras soared 37.7% to 59.77 million units.

CIPA also released digital camera shipments in December 2004. The worth of global shipments decreased 2.2% year-on-year to 117.2 billion yen, while the volume of global shipments hardly grew year-on-year at 4.5 million unit levels. Among CIPA's statistics, the worth of monthly digicam shipments declined for the first time since January 2001, when CIPA started to calculate year-on-year comparisons.

Digital single-lens reflex cameras performed favorably amid such bleakness, though. The volume of global shipments sharply increased 167% compared to a year earlier to 300,000 units, while the worth also sharply soared 152% to 22.9 billion yen. Digital SLR cameras accounted for 20% on a value basis and for 7% on a volume basis of overall digital camera shipments in December.