Sony Corp., Canon Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. are making every effort to keep their latest camera models from going the way of the Flip, GPS receivers and other victims of category-killing smartphones. The top camera makers will unveil more than a dozen new models of inexpensive digital cameras at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, offering jazzed-up standard features such as water-resistant photography and special software to keep squirming children in sharp focus.
The strategy is aimed at reversing a crippling slide in entry-level digital cameras, the industry’s largest market segment, and to carve out a profitable niche that can compete effectively against the expanding smartphone market. To combat improved camera technology in smartphones from Apple Inc., Nokia Oyj and others, manufacturers at the show opening in Tuesday will, among other things, introduce models that beam photos directly to TVs and computers.
“All manufacturers, including Samsung, need to focus on the value proposition of a camera and what differentiates it versus a smartphone,” Reid Sullivan, a senior vice president of Samsung, said in an interview. The Suwon, South Korea-based company will introduce eight models that wirelessly transmit images to other devices.
Sales of digital cameras that fit into consumers’ pockets, called point-and-shoots, have taken a hit as smartphones have become adept at taking high-definition photos and recording videos, said Liz Cutting, an analyst with researcher NPD Group Inc. in Port Washington, N.Y. Smartphones also make it easy to transfer those shots and videos to sites such as Facebook and Flickr, she said.
Through November, 2011 U.S. retail sales of entry-level cameras plummeted 17 percent to 12 million units from 2010, NPD said on Dec. 26, without providing revenue figures. Sales began to slide in 2009 as picture-taking phones improved their auto-focus, zoom and low-light features.
Smartphone makers sold 95 million devices in the U.S. in the same period, research firm Gartner estimates.
U.S. consumers used smartphones to snap 27 percent of their photos last year, up from 17 percent in 2010, according to NPD data through November. The share of photos taken with a point-and-shoot camera fell to 44 percent from 52 percent.
