I reported a couple of weeks ago that in 2025 Fujifilm surpassed Nikon to become the third largest digital camera brand. That fact has been discussed at length across the internet, but my takeaways were 1) that the camera industry as a whole has continued to grow from rock-bottom sales around 2022/2023, 2) Fujifilm has been growing rapidly the last couple of years, selling nearly three times as many digital cameras in 2025 as they did in 2023, 3) Fujifilm is the first brand outside of Canon and Sony to top one million units sold in several years (however, exceeding one million was much less impressive not very far in the past), and 4) if you counted total cameras sold and not restrict it to just digital, Fujifilm is likely the second largest camera brand, exceeding Sony and coming in just behind Canon—Instax is way more popular than X and GFX combined.

In my opinion, where exactly each brand ranks is not all that important, and more gee-whiz than anything else. Who really cares which brand is number one or number three or whatever? I only bring it up because it illustrates the good position Fujifilm is currently in, with strong sales that continue to grow, a trend that I hope extends into the future, but could certainly change from one year to the next.

With that said, PetaPixel posted an article (and companion video) entitled Fujifilm Didn’t Actually Jump Ahead of Nikon in Mirrorless that’s a bit deceptive, seemingly intended to come to Nikon’s public image rescue. Oh, no, no, no—Nikon is really in third place, and not Fujifilm, because they sold more mirrorless cameras. But when you dig into it, it’s actually interchangeable-lens mirrorless, as it excludes fixed-lens cameras like the X100VI, GFX100RF, X half, and Instax Evo, that technically are mirrorless, but for the sake of this data were put into a different category. So basically, if you remove the most viral camera in history from Fujifilm’s numbers plus a handful of other models, yes, Nikon remains at number three. PetaPixel conveniently forgets to mention the X100VI and GFX100RF, and focuses on the “other” models, as a way to put down Fujifilm—even diminishing the massive X half sales success in Asia by focusing solely on its mediocre sales in America, specifically stating that it “became a pack-in bonus item with some Fujifilm X Series cameras at retailers”, which as we discussed at the time, was actually just one camera (the X-T5) bundled with one particular lens (16-80mm f/4) at one specific camera store (Adorama) for a very limited time (definitely not “some cameras” or “retailers”—the plural is a lie that I truly hope is not intentional, because that reflects very poorly on PetaPixel, something they should correct immediately and apologize for).

“Depending on the impact of Fujifilm Instax Evo and X half sales,” PetaPixel says, “the company’s success, and more importantly, Nikon’s failure, takes on an entirely different meaning that broad industry market shares cannot adequately reflect.” If you exclude a market segment that one brand is doing quite well in (and the other is not even dipping its toes in), it changes the outcome. TikTok is the number one social media app, if you exclude Meta. Dodge sells more pickup trucks than Ford, if you don’t count the F-150. Nikon beats Fujifilm, if you don’t count the X100VI and a handful of other models. See how it works? It’s stupid. I have no idea why Fujifilm coming in third bothers PetaPixel so much, and why they feel the need to cook the books so that they can say Nikon is actually the brand that’s in third place.

Like I said, I don’t think any of this actually matters. These rankings change all the time. I remember when Pentax was one of the big three, and now they barely exist, outside of the very popular Ricoh GR series, which is only sort of Pentax, since Ricoh owns Pentax (it’s like including Kia with Hyundai). Canon won’t stay number one forever. Sony could move up or down. Fujifilm might be in third place for one year and then back to fourth in the 2026 numbers, or maybe even number one someday. Who knows? It’s nothing to get overly wrapped up in, and—as always—take it with a grain of salt.

What’s disappointing to me is PetaPixel twisting into a pretzel to reframe it. Why be dishonest? It’s true that Nikon is the third largest when it comes to mirrorless interchangeable-lens models, but that shouldn’t diminish Fujifilm from being the third largest digital camera brand overall. Both can be true at once. Perhaps there is a more interesting story that PetaPixel totally missed: how can a digital camera brand that only makes mirrorless models be number three overall but number four when you just account for mirrorless? Obviously the difference is because the “mirrorless” category is not appropriately named, and excludes many mirrorless models—some very, very popular models, like the most viral camera in history. Is the so-called “mirrorless” category even meaningful? How are the models that were excluded (like the X100VI) impacting the industry? Is Nikon missing out on a major market share? Do they need to make a fixed-lens model to see market growth going forward? There’s a lot that they could have covered that would have been quite interesting, but they chose not to; instead, we got a bit of dishonesty in what’s obviously intended to make Nikon look better by attempting to make Fujifilm look worse. Weird. PetaPixel can and should do better.