The camera-phone craze appears to have officially hit the United States, with Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless both boasting of millions of picture messages passing over their networks every month. Indeed, Sprint’s camera-phone service played a major role in a widely reported story of a New Jersey teen who used his phone to stop an apparent kidnapping.
“Camera phones are becoming increasingly more popular as evidenced by the more than 10 million pictures uploaded and sent over the enhanced nationwide PCS Network in the second quarter alone,” said John Garcia, senior vice president of marketing for sales and distribution with Sprint. “In addition, we’re hearing about creative ways people are using these phones, whether it’s to share a funny moment or prevent a potential crime.”
A 15-year-old New Jersey teen was approached by a man attempting to lure him into his car, according to reports, but the teen foiled the apparent kidnapping by snapping pictures of the man and his license plate number using his camera phone. Police were later able to use the pictures to arrest the man.
The event serves to illustrate the growing interest in camera phones across the country. Indeed, camera phones appear to be selling so well, one industry analyst predicts sales of camera phones could soon exceed the combined total sales of regular digital cameras and those using film.
“Sales of cell phones with cameras embedded could reach 50 million units, and phones that have cameras as a separate attachment could see another 40 million units,” said analyst Tony Henning with Future Image. “So this year is probably a toss-up as to who sells more, but next year is no contest.”
Looking to cash in on the trend is Sprint, which sold the first integrated camera phone in the United States in 2001. Sprint announced subscribers sent more than 10 million pictures over its PCS network in the second quarter. The carrier also announced it will sell the new PCS Vision Picture Phone VGA1000 by Samsung for $160.
Not to be left out, Verizon Wireless announced its customers shared more than 1 million picture messages in less than 30 days since the service launch July 8.
“Verizon Wireless customers are proving picture messaging is a fun and useful tool with enormous potential, and the remarkable results of the service is proof that customers demand quality, easy-to-use features, and they want them on the best wireless network,” said John Stratton, vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless. “Our customers use their wireless phones for more than talking, and as they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words.”
However, said Future Image’s Henning, there are still issues to be ironed out in the camera-phone industry.
“The big hurdle in North America is interoperability,” he said. “Right now, the sender and receiver of a cell-phone image have to be on the same network for instant, peer-to-peer messaging. The hurdle is not technical; it’s economic and political. It comes down to money and territory. The various carriers have to decide how to divvy up the revenues.”
