Cameraphones Drive Digital Image Capture, but Digital Print Volumes Lag"

Capturing and sharing digital images is on the rise, driven by an increase in cameraphone popularity in the U.S. and around the world. Despite this increased image capture activity, which IDC predicts will exceed 626 billion images in 2007, print volumes will not keep pace since the images most often printed are those captured with traditional digital cameras and not cameraphones.

Although the number of digital images printed will trail well behind digital images captured, there is significant growth opportunity in this area. "We all love the instant gratification of a printed image, and the leading source for printing digital images will remain inkjet and specialty printers in the home," said IDC's Ron Glaz, director, Digital Capture Devices at IDC. "Consumers will increasingly use online and retail services, but these options will continue to lag well behind home printer solutions." From 2002 to 2003, print volume increased 41% due to decreasing costs of photo-quality ink-jet paper and photo specialty printers. Overall, digital image print volume will climb from 15.4 billion in 2003 to almost 66 billion by 2007.

As cameraphones begin to incorporate competitive image quality in the form of 1 and 2 megapixel image sensors, print volumes from these devices are expected to increase. Still, IDC expects the cameraphone to remain mostly an "e-sharing" device, driven by ease of image transmittal and attractive data transmission pricing plans.

Additional study findings included that although cameraphones are not significantly driving digital print volumes, digital prints will "out-print" film prints worldwide in 2007. Although home printing will remain dominant, it will lose share over the forecast period to online and retail solutions, and the number of film images will decline an average of 8% over the forecast period"

Posted to the site on 18th February 2004