Stand-alone cameras should have died a while ago, right around the time high-quality built-in versions started coming standard on everybody’s smartphones. Yet through persistence and good timing, the FujiFilm Instax—a sleek, small instant camera (think: Polaroid)—is dominating a market long presumed dead by riding the freight train of retro nostalgia traversing retail.
The 5.5x5x3 inch, .68lb camera comes in several models and varieties, the most popular of which sells for $54 on Amazon. By bridging the gap between new technology and old familiarity, the Instax became the highest selling item in Amazon’s camera category last holiday season, and its fortunes seem primed for even greater success.
A Photo Finish
One would assume all camera sales would be ruined by the smartphone revolution, but this has not been the case—as the digital camera’s fortunes fell, the Instax’s began to rise. Last year, digital camera sales dropped 19% and FujiFilm only sold 1.4 million of them; last year they also sold over 5 million Instax cameras and expect to sell 6.5 million this year.
And these sales numbers do not provide a complete picture of what they have built with the Instax: customers not only turn to the company for the cameras themselves but also the film to feed them, which costs roughly $20 per package of 20 prints. By operating a closed system in which customers necessarily pay $1/print provides a reliable revenue stream for the company to support efforts and campaigns to reach new customers.
Pointing and Shooting their Way to Success
How did they stumble upon such a timely product? Instax’s success has come from a combination of savvy, persistence, and good old-fashioned luck that began over two decades ago.
In 1990, their largest competitor, Kodak, was barred from the instant camera market for infringing on Polaroid’s instant film patent, a fate FujiFilm avoided by partnering with Polaroid in overseas markets and agreeing to not compete in the United States until Polaroid’s patent ran out. When the patent expired, FujiFilm began marketing their instant cameras in the United States after having learned years of lessons from Asian markets.
Then, in 2008, Polaroid quit the business entirely. This left FujiFilm as the only manufacturer in the instant film game for two years and, though new competitors emerged on the heels of their success, they remain the only major player.
And rightfully so—the company stuck with Instax even as the market dried up in the early days of the smartphone revolution. In 2004, they sold less than 100,000 instant cameras but persisted. Their refusal to retire the model could perhaps have proven foolishly stubborn, but in doing so they stepped right into a pendulum swinging against digitization: the retro counterrevolution.
Old is New, Retro is Modern
As trends go, the turn towards retro seems awfully persistent and expansive. From second hand clothing to whiskey and vinyl, millennial consumers are valuing throwbacks as a key component of their individuality.
Now FujiFilm finds itself the lone major player in the instant camera business, selling to a customer base that never experienced Polaroid and are enchanted by the whimsical, retro, and immediately tangible photos.
Imagining Future Images
They are pressing their advantage by expanding the breadth of their offerings to more aggressively attack this market. Cameras are increasingly individuated by unique colors and themes, playing into the millennial desire for personal identifiers. They also offer themed mattes for the prints ranging from polka dots and other artistic designs to Disney and Hello Kitty characters, which are particularly popular among the scrapbooking segment of their demographic.
And, perhaps most interestingly, they are even targeting a new consumer: smart phone users. By downloading an app, smart phone users can connect their phone to an Instax Share Printer that will make prints from photos captured on mobile devices.
Expanding their retail partners to include Walmart, Urban Outfitters and craft stores like Michaels, while also varying and expanding their offerings, FujiFilm intends to milk the retro craze for all its worth. With their nearest competitor charging roughly three times as much for instant film, there seems little to stop their development.
