Camera Phones Invade Low-end Camera Market
BusinessWeek Online is reporting that camera phones are taking over the lower-end of the camera market, displacing conventional digital cameras, which have been forced to move upmarket. Apparently “Last year sales of camera phones from all makers topped 84 million units worldwide—nearly twice the purchases of conventional digital cameras.”
Some digital camera manufacturers are already withdrawing their support for cheap digital cameras and concentrating on the more expensive models. “Katsumi Ihara, president of cell-phone maker Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, says Sony Corp. (SNE ) has ceded the low-end camera market to mobile phones.”