With digital still cameras gaining popularity in Taiwan, the nation's film development shops are being forced to offer digital-image output services for survival, a market professional said yesterday.
"Over the last two years, an increasing number of people started using digital cameras rather than traditional cameras and this cut the bottom line of our film-development business," said Wen Ta-yu (溫達裕), a chief official at FujiFilm Taiwan.
"To balance our losses we simply have to offer digital image services," Wen said.
FujiFilm currently manages nearly 1,000 photo shops in Taiwan, of which 134 outlets provide digital-image output services.
Small companies are also feeling the market transition.
"We noticed that the number of customers coming to develop films has been going down in recent weeks, while the number of people asking for prints from digital images has increased," said Amanda Hung (洪雲惠), 42, who runs a photo shop on Fushing North road.
In order to boost sales, Hung decided a year ago to spend NT$4 million on purchasing digital-image output equipment.
"We have no choice," Hung said. "This is a trend that we have to catch up with."
A digital camera records and stores photographic images in digital form. These images can then be kept in the camera or loaded into a computer. Unlike with traditional cameras, users of digital cameras can view images on computers or the viewscreens of their digital cameras before developing them -- which means they save a lot on development costs.
Users can still get a "hard copy" print-out, when the photo is printed on paper from a digital-image file, instead of being developed from a chemicals-based film.
The average price of printing out a digital photo is about NT$10 per print, although the quality is not always as good as that of photos developed from chemicals-based film.
According to Lu Jung-hwa (呂榮華), a sales executive at FujiFilm Taiwan, the nation's digital-camera penetration rate is on the rise.
"The number of people purchasing digital cameras tripled year-on-year for the past two years," Lu said, adding that more than 5 percent of the households in Taiwan already own such cameras.
"The increase is very significant. For example, I sold only about 1,500 digital cameras every month last year, but that figure jumped to 4,300 last month," Lu said.
Heavy competition and price reductions may also help stimulate market demand. "After new products start hitting the market, prices may drop by NT$1,000 every month for the first six months," Lu said.
In addition to FujiFilm, Kodak Taiwan and Konica Taiwan is also trying to get a chunk of the digital-image printing market.
"Currently we only have 90 photo shops that can print out digital images, and we plan to increase that number to more than 120 shops by the end of the year," said Huang Ching-ying (黃靜瑩), a chief official at Konica Taiwan.
Kodak Taiwan is also planning to increase its digital-image service centers from the current 60 to 100 by the end of this year.
To make the service more accessible and convenient, all three players have set up online photo centers that enable users to submit their image files via the Internet. They can then just pick up the printed photos one or two days later.
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