Apparently Sony owns almost 50% of the worldwide image sensor market

By Louise Carey
published

Sony image sensors have cornered the market, meaning Sony has a 49.1% slice of a $17.2 billion pie

Apparently Sony owns almost 50% of the worldwide image sensor market
(Image credit: TSR)

It's no great secret that many cameras available on the market use Sony sensors – and not just Sony cameras. While they aren't likely to shout it from the rooftops, for years Sony's image sensor technology has beguiled other camera manufacturers into including these sensors in their own imaging tech. 

Sony first began producing CMOS image sensors in 1996, and launched its first CMOS sensor (the IMX001) in 2000. At the time, CCD image sensors were considered superior to CMOS, as they had more pixels and less noise. However, they had a lower readout speed and Sony was convinced that they wouldn't be able to support the high-resolution data of HD video. 

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Louise Carey
Louise Carey

With over a decade of photographic experience, Louise arms Digital Camera World with a wealth of knowledge on photographic technique and know-how – something at which she is so adept that she's delivered workshops for the likes of ITV and Sue Ryder. Louise also brings years of experience as both a web and print journalist, having served as features editor for Practical Photography magazine and contributing photography tutorials and camera analysis to titles including Digital Camera Magazine and  Digital Photographer. Louise currently shoots with the Fujifilm X-T200 and the Nikon D800, capturing self-portraits and still life images, and is DCW's ecommerce editor, meaning that she knows good camera, lens and laptop deals when she sees them.

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