News

PMA show panel debates photo-printing options

February 15, 2004

LAS VEGAS -- Now that digital cameras have moved into the mainstream and the majority of users are printing their photos at home, a host of industry players are maneuvering to control a piece of the printer market.

According to an article in Yahoo News, camera makers such as Canon, Fuji, and Olympus are vying to develop higher and higher-resolution cameras, and camera-equipped cell phones are becoming increasingly available. The result? A greater number of digital images, the prize in the struggle among printer manufacturers.

Representatives from four leading printer and film manufacturers joined former CNN anchor Stuart Varney at the Photo Marketing Association show here to argue about whether retail processing services could recapture the market share they enjoyed in the period up to the early 1990s, when film cameras dominated.

About 80 percent of digital images are printed at home, according to studies by market research firm International Data Corp. and Hewlett-Packard. At least in the United States and China, digital film is cutting into traditional analog film sales at the rate of about 10 to 12 percent per year, Daniel Carp, chairman and CEO of Kodak, told the audience.

At-home printing offers three advantages: concern, choice, and convenience, according to Vyomesh Joshi, the executive vice president responsible for the printer business of HP, the leading vendor in the field. Users can eliminate red-eye and otherwise modify digital images, print out what they choose, and do so immediately without driving to a store.

Retail printing, on the other hand, offers consumers the advantages of bulk processing. In Japan, which the panelists agreed was about a year to 18 months ahead of the United States in adoption of digital cameras, retail printing is undergoing a resurgence, according to Shigetaka Komori, president and chief executive of Fuji Photo Film in Tokyo.

Kodak's Carp notes that about 75 percent of shots go unprinted. Although Kodak's single home printer has enjoyed significant success, the company has invested heavily in in-store kiosks, attempting to boost the number of images printed. The most recent model, unveiled at the show, will actually process analog film (destroying it in the process, for privacy) and transfer the images digitally to CD.

About 70 to 80 percent of the roughly 17 million cell phones sold last year in Japan are equipped with cameras, according to Fuji's Komori. But he also noted that many of those images are not even stored, let alone printed, serving only as a momentary diversion for groups of friends. He went on to say that Fuji is working to convince cell phone users to change their ways and has developed the small Eureka mobile printer to make on-the-go printing easier.

To speed the process of increasing image printing, Canon, Epson, and HP formed the Mobile Imaging and Printing Consortium (MIPC), which will drive standards for printing camera-phone photos, the article said. The standards, to be delivered to the mobile phone industry during the second half of 2004, will promote the use of Bluetooth, memory cards, and PictBridge direct-printing technology.