Belmont, CA (March 11, 2003) -- A new report from Imerge Consulting Group - The Worldwide Consumer Digital Camera Forecast and Market Overview, 2002 - 2007 asserts that worldwide consumer digital camera unit sell-through in 2002 grew at a healthy 25.5% yearly growth rate amassing $6.6B in street valued revenue. The consumer digital camera market continued to be the third highest growth sector of IT in 2002. Throughout Q-1 to Q-3 of 2002, DSC unit sell-through growth remained around 18% to 19% and in Q-4, cash-outs from refinancing provided enough buying power for consumers to spend, increasing this rate up to 24.6% in North America.

Worldwide ASP declines in 2002 slowed somewhat to -11.3% from a 2001 decline of -13.0%. In 2003, this yearly decline will slow even further to an anticipated -7.5%, providing vendors with increased revenues primarily due to heightened adoption in the digital SLR segment, consumer segment adoption moving up into 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0 mega-pixel resolutions and extremely low-end CMOS solutions unable to compete on price alone against branded CCD products at the 3.0 mega-pixel mark.

According to Imerge, North American ASPs also declined -12.7% in 2002. As in 2001, profitable business models in 2002 were a rarity with Sony and Nikon coming up as big winners in revenue share - Nikon producing the highest product line ASPs of any vendor in N.A. Canon produced the largest market share jump both WW and in North America in 2002 moving from sixth to three in unit share.

"Digital camera penetration is attempting to move into core consumer groups but still lacks mass-market appeal primarily because of the lack of easy, affordable ubiquitous printing solutions at mass retail locations in North America. Still with double digit growth rates laying ahead in this sector, it is expected that the North America consumer digital camera sector with sell more units than film cameras, excluding one-time-use cameras by 2004 and will outsell film cameras worldwide by 2006" says Imerge's Principal Analyst, Ron Tussy.

"The worldwide consumer digital camera market is growing in stops and starts akin to plateaus of adoption rather than the smooth bell curve of adoption we have seen with other sectors of consumer products. These adoption plateaus are driven by previous and existing usage paradigms and the consumer digital market is so closely mimicking the film camera market, it is becoming evolutionary rather than revolutionary. For example, by 2005 most of analog minilabs will be 7+ years old and will be reaching their end-of-life. At that point, mass retailers will be forced to adopt digital minilabs by default and this will be the final impedance to mass adoption" asserts Tussy .

The number of camera models jumped 42.5% in 2002 with 114 models introduced to the North American market, the majority of models were in the 2.0 MP segment. Nine vendors introduced entire product lines of six or more cameras in 2002 as they try and fulfill a line-up into well-defined channels and regions. On most point and shoot DSCs, design cycles moved down to 6 - 9 months with most branded vendors. North America and Asia Pacific dominated other regions in 2002 and accounted for 43.6% and 35.5% respectively of the world's DSCs sales. By 2007, Mainland China consumers will dominate Asia Pacific including China accounting for 41.9% of the world's DSC sales and N.A. accounting for 37.7% with the installed base of DSCs expected to reach 130.9M units.

Innovation discussed in this report includes microelectronics and micro-camera designs, new sensor technologies, camera phone effect on DSCs, advanced lens architectures, flash memory technologies, new sensor designs, digital kiosks and digital minilabs, TV photo viewers, OLED screens, 4/3 lens designs and SLRs, micro-electronics and much more.

This report also analyzes the worldwide consumer digital camera market and it's dynamic, including 2002-2007 forecast units, (actual and forecast) ASV, (actual and forecast) street value, (actual and forecast) top 10 market share, channel dynamics, and segmentation, installed base and adoption dynamics. For North America this report analyses the North America market and it's dynamic, 2002-2007 forecast units, (actual and forecast) ASV, (actual and forecast) street value, (actual and forecast) top 10 market share, channel dynamics, and segmentation and adoption dynamics. The Worldwide Consumer Digital Camera Forecast and Market Overview, 2002-2007 also includes Asia Pacific (Japan included), Europe and ROW 2001-2006 units, (actual and forecast) ASV, (actual and forecast) street value, (actual and forecast).

This 110 page, full color, bound report also includes insights into consumer digital camera manufacturing and segmented modeling including sections regarding every key consumer digital camera component and power budgets associated with these components, component costs, vendor FOB and landed costs per segment of camera, channel margins per segment, units per channel per segment forecast and vendor business models.

The Worldwide Consumer Digital Camera Forecast and Market Overview, 2002-2007 also includes the industry's most comprehensive technology segmentation, Worldwide and North America top ten market share, (units and percentages) and forecasts year to year growth rates for units, and compound average growth rates for units, ASV and street revenue. This thorough report also identifies channel penetration percentages for each technology segment. Further, this report identifies the future drivers of technology and adoption.

The Imerge Consulting Group LLC Worldwide Consumer Digital Camera Forecast and Market Overview, 2002 - 2007 has become known as an essential, affordable tool for all consumer digital camera vendors, manufacturers, component suppliers, assemblers/ODM/OEM providers, VCs and peripheral vendors for forecasting, strategic and product planning/development and to keep abreast of the market from an ultimate insider's perspective.

More information can be obtained at: www.imergeconsulting.com or by calling 650.631.5737

About Imerge Consulting Group: Imerge Consulting Group is a privately held consulting firm that provides a broad spectrum of market intelligence, decision support, validation, business development, market research and analysis to assist imaging corporations and institutional investors/fund managers with product/business planning and forecasting. Imerge Consulting Group is also a provider of the most widely respected topical reports and forecasts in the imaging industry, providing unparalleled insights, analysis and forecasting for imaging devices and appliances, camera phones, digital cameras, digital minilabs and digital kiosks, embedded and external flash memory, imaging components, CMOS and CCD imaging sensors and digital photo print fulfillment.