Sanyo Electric Co, which makes chips used in digital cameras, will also supply chipsets to mobile phone manufacturers as handsets with built-in cameras gain popularity in Japan.
"More than five manufacturers are planning to use our" chip called charge-coupled device, Minoru Hamada, general manager at Sanyo's CCD development department, said in an interview. He declined to name potential customers.
Cellphones with built-in digital cameras have gained a following in Japan since J-Phone Ltd started selling such handsets in November last year.
The nation's third-largest mobile phone operator, which is partly owned by Vodafone Group Plc, has signed up more than 2.7 million camera-phone users by the same month this year, or about a fifth of its subscriber base.
Osaka-based Sanyo has reduced power consumption in its charge-coupled device and made it small enough to compete with CMOS imager, the rival chip made by Sharp Corp. and other makers, said Hamada. Currently all handsets with built-in cameras use CMOS imagers.
"Half of mobile phones sold in Japan next year will be camera phones," Hamada said, adding Sanyo's CCDs will account for more than half of the chips used in those handsets in the six months to March 31, 2003. "Though mobile phone makers have had the choice of CMOS imagers alone, the situation will change."
Sony Corp, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co and Sharp also make CCDs used in digital cameras.
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