In 2004, the worldwide consumer digital camera market experienced enormous pricing pressure on the low-end, primarily due to camera phone adoption, effecting DSC unit sell-through which remained nearly flat from 2003 at a 26.3% growth rate, amassing $11.2B in street valued revenue. ASP's in 2004 plummeted -19% on average across all geos. Those non-branded camera vendors providing sub $150 units suddenly found themselves in competition with branded vendors at retail selling cameras at the same price-points. Many were forced out of the market in 2004.

Contrary to another research firm's assessment for the WW consumer DSC market, (guessing 1% year on year growth rate in 2007), Imerge Consulting Group firmly believes this sector will slowly settle between 5% and 10% growth year on year out to 2009. Even though resolution will peak and will not be a market requirement or driver out to 2007 and beyond, price, wireless transmission, improved image quality, digital filtration, location based services, digital specific attributes providing more convenience and an enhanced value proposition will backfill to provide an enhanced user experience. Also as a benchmark, consumer point and shoot film cameras continued to grow at a 2.0% yearly rate up until just recently, even when competing for mindshare with digital cameras.

"There is no compelling reason whatsoever to believe that consumer digital cameras will only grow at a 1% yearly rate in just two short years" states Ron Tussy, principal analyst if Imerge. "Only 35% to 40% of US households have been penetrated and soon printer docking stations and wireless transmission, (BlueTooth, 802.11 G, Wifi and WiMAX) will allow direct connection to printers, kiosks, digital minilabs, hotspots and other capture devices, circumventing any need for a PC. All these attributes will eventually drive adoption up to the same 98% level of penetration of film cameras into US homes."

The North American consumer DSC market continued its downward spiral with unit growth rates plummeting to 16.3% year on year and ASP's dropping -20%, accruing just over $4 billion in street revenue. What has slowed down adoption in North America the last two years is the lack of value proposition to consumers who want to conveniently move their non-disposable images downstream into prints for long-term archiving and it is print archiving, not technology that will be the long-term medium for preserving treasured memories of families and friends. Consumers have long ago lost confidence that any technology will be around as it exists 30 years from now, but have confidence that their prints, if properly preserved will.

It is also abundantly clear that multi-media phones, (providing still capture, MP3, audio, MM messaging, video and video phone capabilities as of 2005) are going to fulfill the low-end of adoption as an image capture platform, in-fact displacing single-use film cameras worldwide.

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 and wireless transmission will be the final impedance to mass adoption of cameras.

Most point and shoot DSCs continued with 6 - 9 month design-cycles with most branded vendors. Asia Pacific (38.5%) surpassed North America (35%) as the dominate region in 2004. By 2009, Mainland China consumers will dominate Asia Pacific accounting for 48% of the world's DSC sales and N.A. accounting for 23% with the WW installed base of DSCs expected to reach 231 M units.

Innovation discussed in this report includes microelectronics and micro-camera designs, new sensor technologies, 802.11 G, WIMAX, WiFi, 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 2004-2009 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, 2004-2009 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, 2004-2009 also includes Asia Pacific (Japan included), Europe and ROW 2004-2009 units, (actual and forecast) ASV, (actual and forecast) street value, (actual and forecast).

This 80 page 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. Further, this report identifies the future drivers of technology and adoption.

About Imerge Consulting Group
Since 1998, Imerge Consulting Group has been a privately held firm that provides a broad spectrum of market intelligence, decision support, validation, business development, market research and analysis to assist imaging corporations, wireless and handheld vendors, imaging component providers, institutional investors and fund managers. Imerge Consulting Group also provides some 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, consumer and pro digital cameras, digital minilabs and digital kiosks, embedded and external flash memory, imaging components, CMOS and CCD imaging sensors and digital photo print fulfillment.