Digital-camera growth has peaked, studies say

While digital-camera sales continue to grow at rates most industries would love to see, the numbers haven't kept up with the torrid pace of a year ago, a new report says.

Approximately 9.7 million digital cameras were sold in the United States in the first half of 2005, a healthy 20 percent more than were sold during the same period last year. But the segment's growth in 2005 pales in comparison to the 50 percent growth during the first half of 2004.

It is of course, is the tremendous sales of cell phones with digital cameras built in. Those are definitely digital-camera sales that need to be taken into account, because it's a way that people are getting digital cameras into their hands. Kodak currently is the top dog in the U.S. digital-camera market, with sales of 2.15 million units in the first half of 2005 and a 22.1 percent market share. Next up is Canon, with sales of 2 million units and market share of 20.6 percent. Sony is third, with 1.78 million digital cameras sold and 18.3 percent of the market.

But while Kodak leads the market, IDC's numbers reveal that Canon could easily take the top spot soon. That, is because Canon's sales were up 68.7 percent during the first half of 2005 over the same period in 2004, compared to Kodak's growth of 46.3 percent.
In any case, IDC's numbers don't necessarily prove the market is stabilizing, though researches think huge growth at the low-end may be over. However, there's no way as of yet to know how the huge sales of disposable digital cameras are affecting the market for more traditional equipment.

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Adger Chase is the webmaster of http://www.advancedigitech.com, the affordable consumer
electronics online store.


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