2011 European Digital Photography Survey Reveals Changes in Market Make-Up

　　The results of InfoTrends’ 2011 European digital photography end-user survey indicate that the number of photos Western European digital camera owners take on average over a three month period has declined by 18% since 2007. The 2011 data demonstrates that German respondents are most photo-active and take the greatest number of photos, whilst the U.K. respondents take the fewest photos.

　　The decline in the number of photos taken over the past several years has impacted the number of photos saved, shared, and printed. As the Western European digital camera market matures, the average digital camera owners can be best described as mainstream, casual photographers who use their camera sporadically. This is unlike the early adopting hobbyists who dominated among digital camera owners 3 or 4 years ago. This shift in the digital camera owning population has caused a reduction in the number of photos taken. The emergence of easy electronic viewing and sharing of photos have meant that printing is an option rather than a necessity. The positive news in 2011 is that, even though the average number of photos that are taken is down compared to 2010, the number of photos that are being saved and printed has stabilised.

　　Many consumers continue to save images onto CDs/DVDs or hard drives, but these methods are known to deteriorate over time. Electronic formats may also become redundant as technology evolves. High-quality prints stored in photo albums, however, are likely to outlast other storage methods and will not suffer technological redundancy.

　　Mona Belle, a Consultant at InfoTrends, states, “Retailers need to encourage consumers to save their photos using a storage solution that offers easy archival and retrieval. Digital camera owners that have easy access to their photos are likely to view their photos more frequently, therefore increasing the chance of printing their photos at some time in the future.”

　　InfoTrends has released a report that provides an analysis of imaging behaviour data from its 2011 European digital photography end-user survey. This survey was conducted among Internet-connected households in France, Germany, Spain, U.K., and Russia in March of 2011. In total 2,049 qualified responses were received from respondents in France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. This report focuses just on the Western European countries surveyed.