Digital camera ownership expanding

About 20 percent of Taiwanese families are expected to own a digital camera this year, up from 17 percent late last year, an official of Kodak Taiwan (台灣柯達) said Monday.

Speaking at a new product promotion, the Kodak Taiwan sales manager King Yu-chen (金玉珍) said that the penetration rate of digital cameras among Taiwanese families will increase this year thanks to product simplification that makes the devices easier to use.

According to the results of a survey conducted by the US-based GfK Marketing Services, global sales of digital cameras was around 660,000 last year, with the figure likely to rise to 1.3 million this year, King said, adding that between 70 percent and 75 percent of worldwide users are first-time users.

At present, 70 percent of users are men, with the number of female users growing fast, he said.

The digital camera ownership rate in the US was around 30 percent as of the end of last year, with units priced at between US$100 and US$700 being the best sellers, according to the GfK study.

Taiwanese digital camera makers have continued to ship higher-resolution models, with three megapixel cameras comprising around 36.1 percent of shipments in the fourth quarter last year, according to figures from the semi-official technology researcher Market Intelligence Center (市場情報中心).