Digicam growth in 2005

Reuters reports on the photo industry’s predictions that US digital camera sales growth will slow in 2005.

While sales increased more than 30% per year in each of the last three years, the industry expects 2005 sales growth to be around 13%. It’s still growth, mind you, but the hockey stick is apparently starting to flatten out. Other stats to note:

• US digicam sales growth is expected to plateau in 2006 or 2007
• Overall camera market including film cams is expected to be relatively flat in 2005 versus 2004
• Film sales are expected to decline 18% in 2005 after dropping 19% in 2004
• Home self-printing of digipics will shrink to 52% in 2005 from 61% in 2004
• The decrease in print-at-home seems to be due to an increase in the number of people printing their digipics at local retail stores a la Walgreen and Wal-Mart, projected to be 40% in 2005 versus 31% in 2004)

No specific mention of the cellcam effect on any of this.