It's official: phone cameras are pushing digital cameras out the door

The Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) has announced that global digital camera shipments were hammered by smartphone cameras on the low end, and declined 36% year-on-year in 2013 for a grand total of 62.8 million units after stagnating in 2012. 

An Olympus interchangeable-lens camera

"The decline in shipments of digital cameras with built-in lenses (compact digital cameras) was particularly pronounced, falling to 45.7 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 41.4%," the association said.

The higher end digital cameras, which have interchangeable lenses and significantly better resolution compared to phone cameras, did slightly better. This category shipped 17.1 million units in 2013, a year-on-year decline of 15%, and also grew as a proportion of the total, accounting for almost 30% of total shipments of digital cameras, up from 20.5% in 2012. Additionally, nearly 27 million interchangeable lenses were shipped in 2013. 

CIPA projects that 2014 numbers will continue to fall around the world, to a total of 55 million digital cameras of all types.