Speech given by Hoshang S. Billimoria, CEO, Next Gen Publishing Pvt. Ltd. at the 15th Smart Photography Awards, 2020

Ladies and gentlemen, Good afternoon and welcome to the 15th Smart Photography Awards. I thank you all for gracing India’s premier imaging awards event. 2019 was both an exciting and disappointing year for the imaging industry. Exciting, because of the number of launches in the full frame mirrorless segment. Indeed, 2019 will be recalled as the year of full frame mirrorless cameras. Four major manufacturers are now present in this segment. 2019 was also a good year for innovations.

The year was disappointing for a number of reasons. Compact cameras continued their downward slide in the world market. So did D-SLR cameras, although at a much lower rate. Mirrorless cameras grew but not at the rate many had expected. Premium smartphones saw demand plateauing. Mid priced smartphones, however, did well and especially so, in the Indian market. The Indian camera market in 2019 was at best, stagnant.

What does 2020 foretell? Well, mirrorless will continue to grow. Over 90% of new launches will be in the mirrorless market. We expect both APS-C and Micro Four Thirds cameras also to fare well. After all, both APS-C and Micro Four Thirds products are much cheaper and therefore will occupy useful niches in the market. As for the Indian market, a lot will depend on the Indian economy and how it fares.

As you may be aware, Smart Photography is the sole Indian member of EISA. In 2019, the jury of EISA met thrice and the Camera of the Year Award went to Nikon’s Z6. For the EISA Awards, no member of the jury can vote for a product that has not been reviewed in the member’s magazine. The same policy also applies for the SP Awards. If SP has not reviewed the product, it will not be considered for the Awards. Interestingly, no awards were won by D-SLRs at EISA this year.

This year, the SP Jury for the Camera of the Year Awards consisted of the following:

1. Dr. Jehangir B. Mistry, Dean and Member, Board of Directors, Xavier Institute of Communications, St. Xaviers College, Mumbai

2. Rajan Chougule, Director, Bharati Vidyapeeth’s School of Photography, Pune

3. Ronny Sequeira, professional commercial photographer

4. Hoshang S. Billimoria, CEO, Next Gen Publishing Pvt. Ltd. and Chief Editor, Smart Photography.

5. Rohinton Mehta, Technical Editor, Smart Photography

6. Sujith Gopinath, Assistant Editor, Smart Photography

The jury met on 5th December in Mumbai and deliberated over the shortlisted products at length. Their votes are lying in sealed envelopes and the Camera of the Year Award will be disclosed at today’s event.

Like for the imaging industry and so many other industries in India, 2019 was also a very challenging year for the media industry. I trust that we will all work together and support each other to make 2020

I thank our organisers, sponsors, stakeholders and advertisers and wish you all an exciting afternoon.