James Fee
11-22-2004, 10:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/moneystoryN1122CAMERA.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/moneystoryN1122CAMERA.htm</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Eastman Kodak Co. is nipping at Sony Corp.'s heels in the ballooning U.S. digital camera market. The world's biggest film manufacturer, aiming to become the No. 1 seller of point-and-shoot digital cameras on its home turf in 2004, almost drew level with Japanese front-runner Sony in third-quarter U.S. camera shipments, market research firm IDC said Friday. Sony delivered 1 million consumer digital cameras in the third quarter, only 10,000 more than Kodak, IDC said. Canon Inc. ranked third with 800,000 shipments, followed by Olympus Corp. with 585,000. Other major camera makers include Fuji Photo Film Co., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Nikon Corp. IDC, based in Framingham, Mass., estimates that 24 million digital cameras will be sold in the United States this year, up from nearly 17 million in 2003, and sales could jump to $8 billion from $5.7 billion. While profits are harder to measure, "the more cameras you get out there, the more likely" a company can generate sales of printers, paper, ink and other high-margin accessories, said IDC analyst Christopher Chute."</i><br /><br />Kodak has bet the farm on their digital camera sales and with this news they have to be happy.