Phones with the ability to take images, both still and video, have captured about 40% of the wireless phone market, according to a recent report by In-Stat. Despite the products' popularity, many camera phone users expect higher resolution, the ability to use storage media and many of the state-of-the-art features found in modern digital cameras, the research firm found.
"These desires, plus the fact that many users already have a high-resolution digital camera, lead In-Stat to forecast that the North American market for camera and camcorder phones will peak in 2007," says Bill Hughes, In-Stat analyst.
In a companion report, In-Stat also found that dissatisfaction with picture quality is only one factor that is severely limiting sending or printing camera phone images.
The In-Stat report found that the vast majority of users in the survey also use a high-resolution digital camera in addition to their camera phones. Only 3% of the respondents use their handsets as their only digital cameras, according to the report. In addition, most survey respondents indicated that they take fewer than 10 pictures with their camera phone each month, said In-Stat in the report. Fewer than 2% of respondents say they will consider a camera phone with one megapixel of resolution or less, while more than 50% say they would only consider a handset with more than two megapixels of resolution, the report suggested.




