Special Photo Printers Still in Early Adopter Stage, MetaFacts Says

ENCINITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 25, 2002--Leading computer technology marketing watcher MetaFacts Inc. reported today that digital camera ownership has doubled in the last year in homes with PCs.

Slightly more than one in five households with PCs now have digital cameras. This 20.2% penetration for 2001 compares to a 10% digital camera ownership rate in homes with PCs in 2000 and only 1.6% in 1998.

Results from MetaFacts' 2001 Technology User Profile (TUP) survey, the largest of its kind in the nation with more than 28,000 household respondents, have been aggregated in a TUP Target Edition -- Digital Imaging -- published this week by MetaFacts.

MetaFacts Principal Analyst Dan Ness said, "The growth of digital camera ownership clearly exceeds the growth rate in home PC ownership in the last few years, from 38 million homes in 1998 to 50 million homes in 2000 and 57 million in 2001. Digital imaging at homes is hot, and has reached a broad range of users, well beyond the early adopters that buy every type of technology."

At the same time, digital photography buffs are moving more slowly into using specialized photo printing technologies. Multi-purpose ink-jet color printers remain the home PC user's first choice with nearly two-thirds (65.8%) using the machines. Those who own or plan to own a separate photo printer comprise only 4.3% of the home PC universe.

Still, digital camera owners appear to be searching for better printing solutions as two-thirds of them (65.1%) have changed brands of printers in the past two years. The favored ink-jet printer brands -- H-P, Canon, Epson and Lexmark -- are also the brands from which most people are switching.

"There is a good deal of churn in the ink-jet printer market, which is partly attributable to lower printer prices and households replacing or adding new PCs," said Ness.

Other findings in the report:

• Top desktop PC brand owners -- Compaq, H-P, Gateway, and Dell -- have the highest penetration of digital cameras. In the notebook market, the only exception to this comes from Toshiba notebook owners, 8.8% in the category, having a 14.2% share of those with digital cameras.
• Digital camera owners -- virtually equal in numbers between male and female PC owners -- tend to use more high-speed Internet connections (20.6% have either cable or DSL links) than the average PC owner (about 7%). But 65.8% of digital camera owners store or scan photos with their PCs versus only 26.2% of non-camera owners who do so.
• About two-thirds of digital camera owners (68.3%) use their printers to print photos some of the time, with 6% of digital camera owners using their printers most often to produce images.
• Photo printer owners seem to be more computer and Internet-savvy than digital camera owners, owning more sophisticated peripheral equipment, software and connectivity products than the average digital camera owner and using the Web more to purchase these kinds of products.
• A little more than 48% of photo printer owners also own digital cameras, mostly using their special printers to produce pictures from outside sources. Similarly, they appear to be more interested in picture reproduction quality, as indicated by their greater proportional ownership of, or plans to own, items such as laser and photo printers, scanners, DVD players and flat panel displays.