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To: Esa who wrote (2181)	12/19/1997 1:30:00 PM
From: Esa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

This is old news (Feb 97) but interesting: Manufacturers Introduce New Digital Cameras and Expect Huge Sales Increases Olympus introduced five new digital cameras this year. They are projecting digital camera sales of 60,000 units a month in Japan this year. Olympus has been selling two models so far and average monthly sales reached 30,000 units. Minolta revealed a new model which can be easily connected to a TV set. Fuji Film will come out with a new model and expects to double its sales to 500,000 units this year. Panasonic is also expected to enter the consumer digital camera market. The market will be more competitive than ever. It was reported that almost one million digital cameras were produced in 1996 in the world and half of them were distributed in the Japanese market. According to industry analyses, the world digital camera market will expend to 10,000,000 units by the year 2000. Initially, major camera manufacturers did not believe this projection mainly because of the inferior quality of pictures taken by digital cameras. However, they were forced to accept it due to rapid growth in sales since last fall. Digital cameras are used for making Internet home pages and picture albums. Also picture quality has been improved tremendously by new CCD technology. One issue of concern is the standardization of memory card hardware. Three types are competing on the market. Even among Toshiba's 'Smart Media' group, the cards made by Fuji Film and Olympus are not compatible. Another element that has helped boost sales is the use of the Internet for transmitting, storing and printing digital pictures. Many companies are already seriously studying these services, but again, the question is standardization. "When digital cameras become popular and get universal support, these manufacturers will be forced to unite their formats. Consumer pressure will resolve the issue sooner than expected as happened to home video and DVD equipment," said one industry expert in Tokyo.