Photo Printer Makers Jostle for Position

L A S   V E G A S, Feb. 18 -- Now that digital cameras have moved into the mainstream and the majority of users are printing their photos at home, a host of industry players are maneuvering to control a piece of the printer market.

Rochester, N.Y., firm Eastman Kodak, for example, has said it will re-enter the ink jet market.

Camera makers such as Canon, Fuji, and Olympus are vying to develop higher and higher resolution cameras, and camera-equipped cell phones are becoming increasingly available. The result? A greater number of digital images, the prize in the struggle among printer manufacturers.

Last Thursday, representatives from four leading printer and film manufacturers joined former CNN anchor Stuart Varney at the Photo Marketing Association show here to argue about whether retail processing services could recapture the market share they enjoyed in the period up to the early 1990s, when film cameras dominated.

At-Home vs. In-Store Printing

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About 80 percent of digital images are printed at home, according to studies by market research firm International Data Corp. and Hewlett-Packard. At least in the United States and China, digital film is cutting into traditional analog film sales at the rate of about 10 to 12 percent per year, Daniel Carp, chairman and CEO of Kodak, told the audience.

At-home printing offers three advantages: concern, choice, and convenience, according to Vyomesh Joshi, the executive vice president responsible for the printer business of HP, the leading vendor in the field. Users can eliminate red-eye and otherwise modify digital images, print out what they choose, and do so immediately without driving to a store.

Retail printing, on the other hand, offers consumers the advantages of bulk processing. In Japan, which the panelists agreed was about a year to 18 months ahead of the United States in adoption of digital cameras, retail printing is undergoing a resurgence, according to Shigetaka Komori, president and chief executive of Fuji Photo Film in Tokyo.