News

Fujifilm casts net for camera, cam-phone printers

May 9, 2005

TWICE: Fujifilm has set its sights on double-digit market share in the digital still camera market and on driving new camera owners to make prints of their digital images, including those taken with the increasingly ubiquitous camera phone.

Executives overseeing the company's digital still camera, printing and camera phone initiatives, sketched out a vision of a "total solution" that could blanket a consumer at every turn and embed the company and its retail partners in everything from cellular handsets to Microsoft's XP operating system.

According to the research firm IDC, Fujifilm ranked sixth in overall digital cameras shipped in 2004 with 8 percent of the market. The company has targeted a double-digit market share in the U.S. market for 2005, with a new series of cameras to appeal to repeat buyers but without a consumer-priced digital SLR.

"It's too much of a stretch to speak of 'photo ATMs' but we are pursuing a lot of non-traditional outlets with a faster kiosk," Haug said. More can be done at the point-of-sale to drive the printing message home, said Walter Haug, vice president of marketing for Fujifilm.

Click here to read the full story (free registration required).