Panasonic Corp and Japan's other mid-tier camera makers have
a battle on their hands to win over a smartphone "selfie" generation
to mirrorless cameras that held such promise when they were launched around
five years ago.
Panasonic, like peers Fujifilm Holdings and Olympus Corp,
has been losing money on its cameras since mobile phones that take high-quality
photos ate into the compact camera business. This year, compact camera sales
are likely to fall more than 40 percent to fewer than 59 million, according to
industry researcher IDC.