News

Photo printing industry hopes for a rebound

March 31, 2005

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: The overall number of images converted into prints has been slipping since the dawn of the 21st century, a drop-off that coincided with the lightning transition to a world without film. A few years ago, there wasn't a framework in place to help digital shutterbugs print easily or cheaply. Digital cameras are now in about 43 million homes in the United States, and that 40 percent penetration could reach 70 percent by 2007. The more mainstream they become, some analysts argue, the more likely that old printing habits will reestablish themselves. "Everybody treasures memories, and what makes memories more vivid than a photograph, a print?" said Ulysses Yannas of Buckman, Buckman & Reid in New York. That impulse, he thinks, "will not fade, it's human nature." Bolstering Yannas' belief is a recent frenzy of acquisitions of online photo startups, which are projected to churn out 700 million prints this year, up from 400 million in 2004. Others dismiss the notion of shoeboxes filling up to the brim again as wishful thinking. "The pie isn't necessarily going to get any bigger," said Frank Baillargeon, an industry consultant in Eagle, Idaho. "But the pie is going to be sliced up in many, many different ways." Manufacturers such as Eastman Kodak, however, think the meteoric rise of camera phones could turn the lucrative print business into a growth market again. Aside from rushing higher-resolution cameras, speedier printers, fancier software and all-purpose kiosks into the marketplace, they're employing all their marketing tricks to mold consumer habits and transform electronically stored images into prints of all varieties. Click here to read the full story.