The Tornado is here: Mobile Wireless Digital Imaging & Transmission
"We are at a major inflection point in the imaging industry's history." - Future Image -
It appears therefore that camera-phones are not just the biggest thing happening in "Wireless" Imaging, they're the biggest thing happening in "all of" Imaging
There is Tornado growth of MMS enabled camera phones.
At the end of 2001 95% of digital camera phones were sold in Japan and standards were proprietary.
They are now being sold worldwide.
Over 200 networks worldwide have implemented, or are implementing, standardized (open nonproprietary) MultiMedia Messaging Centers (MMSC) and gateways to support wireless digital still and video photography.
AWS is the first carrier in the US to implement standardized MMS within mLife and the other carriers will quickly evolve nonstandardized, noninteroperable capabilities into standardized ,interoperable, capabilities.
3GPP2 (CDMA) has rushed to standardize MMS along the lines of 3GPP (GSM/3GSM).
There will be Tornado growth in MMS messages (with or without photographs) just like there was with SMS once remaining interoperability, roaming, and billing issues, are resolved and those obstacles should be cleared by 80% to 90% cleared by Christmas of this year.
Before too long there will be few laggards left standing.
>> Camera-Phones To Outsell Digital Cameras This Year
Future Image Weekly Briefing
Issue #243
March 14, 2003
Forecasts for worldwide sales of camera-phones in 2003 vary depending on who's publishing them, from 40 to 80 million units. No matter which forecast you believe, however, one interesting market reality emerges: camera-phones will outsell digital cameras this year - not in five years or three years or even two years, but this year.
According to a survey by the Camera and Imaging Products Association (CIPA), world shipments of digital cameras hit 24.55 million units in 2002, up 66 percent from the previous year. That's very healthy growth, but camera-phone sales grew by 500 percent over the same period. CIPA predicts that the world's digital camera shipments for 2003 will expand 28 percent year-on-year to 31.45 million units. Another good year for digital cameras, but camera-phone sales are forecast to at least double to a range of 40 - 60 million units in the same period.
Stop for a moment to consider that: From the appearance of the first commercial camera-phone in November 2000 to the most widely used picture-taking device in the world in less than four years. It's taken digital cameras ten years since the introduction in 1994 of the first consumer digital camera - the Apple QuickTake 100 - to reach sales of 25 million units a year. It will take camera-phones less than three years to reach double that level.
What's even more striking is that this year more cameras built-in or attached to mobile phones will be sold than any other kind of camera - in fact they're likely to outsell even the combination of digital and traditional film cameras (not including single-use cameras).
All major industry and market research forecasts show sales of conventional film cameras trending downward, with estimates of about 60 million units worldwide in 2003. Add the 32 million digital cameras forecast by CIPA for a total of 92 million units digital and conventional in 2003. By contrast, the trend for camera-enabled phone sales is sharply upward - our own WIRE (Wireless Imaging Research Edition) service forecasts 50 million camera-phones and industry sources forecast more than 40 million camera attachments. It will be neck and neck in 2003, but by 2004, it will be no contest.
It appears therefore that camera-phones are not just the biggest thing happening in "Wireless" Imaging, they're the biggest thing happening in "all of" Imaging.
The rapid growth of picture and video messaging services and handsets in Japan and Korea is a bona fide phenomenon and it's now spreading to Europe and North America. Neither the adoption rates nor the services and usage patterns will be identical to those in trend-setting Asian markets, but mobile imaging in general and camera-phones in particular are nonetheless coming to a market near you -and their capabilities are becoming increasingly camera-like. For instance with respect to resolution, one Megapixel units will be on the market within months, with two and three Megapixel units soon to follow.
We are on the threshold of an extraordinary explosion of picture-taking devices - and most of them will be in cell phones. The implications for the imaging business are revolutionary, both because of the sheer magnitude of the phenomenon and because, for the first time in the history of our industry, an image capture device has emerged that is designed for people to carry with them at all times. Recent related news items are -- Mobile users want photo messaging, Konica to print camera-phone pix, SanDisk to launch mini SD for phone-cams, Motorola offers camera module for mobiles -- which also demonstrate the stunningly rapid rise of an ecosystem around these devices. Future Image is going on the record on this: We are at a major inflection point in the imaging industry's history. <<
- Eric - |
