Digital cameras on the decline
Are digital cameras on the decline?
Are digital camera sales going to decrease in the coming years? Well according to a recent PMA article and IDC report this will happen in the near future.
A few thoughts.
Digital camera manufactures aggressively pushed out new cameras with slightly better features each year before the market really needed the new features.
Digital cameras have now reached the price sensitive mainstream consumer. Once satisfied with a decent low cost option they will not purchase for a few years.
Most mainstream users don’t care for more megapixels they just want a good picture at a good price.
Cell phones have begun to dip into the digital photography market. The consumer pie will be divided up with multiple devices cell phones, digital cameras, and maybe more long term but video units.
Check out the pma article below for more details.
Digital camera market peaked too soon, says IDC report
The digital camera industry has reached maturity early, and the heady growth rates will slow, according to a recent report, notes CNET News.com. Shipments will be strong in the next couple years but will slow and then dip over the long term, research firm IDC forecast. Indications are that the market will peak prematurely, missing the opportunity to replace film cameras as the predominant method of taking photos--instead the market will be made up of a more diverse range of devices with photo capturing abilities, such as cell phones and other combination devices.
"Digital cameras won't become as ubiquitous as film because manufacturers became obsessed with features instead of the unmet market," said Chris Chute, digital imaging analyst with IDC. "They were rewarded with market growth, but once they filled that bucket there wasn't any other bucket to fill."
Though shipments will continue to be strong through 2006--reaching 94 million units--growth will slow then begin shrinking in 2007. By 2009, shipments will decline to 82 million units, Chute forecast.
The digital camera is still viewed as a PC peripheral limiting its reach over the long term. Consumers are also shifting their buying patterns and instead of focusing on megapixels, they're turning to prices, which are also dipping, reports CNET News.com. Average selling prices for cameras will fall from last year's $340 to $295 by the end of 2005 and $200 by 2009.
Manufacturers will be re-evaluating their roles in the digital camera market during the next 18 months, Chute said. The top digital camera makers worldwide and in the United States are Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Eastman Kodak, Olympus, and Sony.
Technorati Tags : Digital Cameras | declined |
Issues Email to a friend Print Version
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blog.fotolia.com/mt-tb.cgi/323
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Digital cameras on the decline:
» Digital Pc de Digital Pc
tal TV shows to disk, Offers comparative reviews for computers and for other comp [Read more]
Tracked on December 22, 2006 08:38 PM
» Digital Price de Digital Price
HARDWARE, Pricegrabber Secure Digital Card Low Price Search of the Week. They help [Read more]
Tracked on May 8, 2007 08:31 PM
» Digital Card de Digital Card
The company makes online transactions safe for millions of custom [Read more]
Tracked on June 13, 2007 04:35 PM
» Logo Design Prices de Logo Design Prices
Irish business card and stationary design pricing, logo design price Ireland. Logo desig [Read more]
Tracked on September 30, 2007 04:13 AM
Comments
Yes this may be true but there is still much room to grow. This article looks at it from the perspective of the industry and them making outrageous growth. The fact is though there are still many folks out there who want to buy digital. And camera phones are crappy and will be for years.
Posted by kevin on 16:48, May 4 2005
That's ridiculous! More and more consumers will be changing to digital cameras. What is more, is that older people and young people alike are getting into picture-taking with digital cameras. People who were never interested in film cameras are buying digitals! And furthermore, digital photo-processing is everywhere which makes the claim that you need a PC for digital cameras more ridiculous than the rest of this article.
Posted by Kathy on 03:07, May 5 2005
I think the article looks at the overall growth of digital cameras. For years the industry has been saying that digital cameras will replace film but we still have a lot of film.
Europe had a ton of digital camera stock left over from last year. For some reason they were not sold. Maybe becuase the consumer was already happy with what they had.
Sure more and more people are getting into digital photography. But you don't need to buy a digital camera every year. We had such huge growth the last few years but the article suggests this might be slowing down and will not meet older predictions of growth.
But who knows predictions can be wrong.
Posted by Chad on 03:38, May 6 2005
Post a comment
If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be pre-approved by Fotolia before your comment will appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.
