Nokia executive: Camera phones will kill digital cameras in five years

From Russell Beattie's Weblog I learned of an article in the European edition of Time magazine that could generate some interesting comments in the wireless and digital camera environment.

Time quotes Nokia's Anssi Vanjoki, multimedia group vice president, as saying that "the camera is going to die" and devices like Nokia's 7700 multimedia handset (see below), will replace them.

Vanjoki predicts, according to Time, that digital cameras will die in five years. The reporter describes Vanjoki as "an excitable, high-decibel executive who stands out in the quiet crowd of Nokia managers." I think Vanjoki needs a cold -- or, at least, lukewarm, shower.

Reality needs to kick in

The Nokia 7700's success is by no means assured. It's big, bulky and expensive. But regardless of whether the 7700 succeeds or fails, digital cameras are going to be around for a long time -- with caveats.

I can indeed see camera phones cutting into the digital camera marketplace in a significant way. With each new generation of camera phones, digital camera makers need to be more concerned. Indeed, I suspect camera phones already are eating into the market for VGA digital cameras.

I can also see camera phones -- for tens of millions of people -- being the only camera they have, especially with one megapixel camera phones and beyond. For people who just want to take snapshots for pleasure or even business purposes, a higher resolution camera phone would be all they need.

Death will be greatly exaggerated

In Japan, many people purchase camera phones for the camera and transfer photos to their computers or printing kiosks without ever (or rarely) transmitting a photo wirelessly. Read the comment posed today by Senshu Igarashi as well as the previous comment by Benedict Evans.

But single-purpose digital cameras will have superior ergonomics, lenses, software, etc. The new megapixel digital cameras with six, eight and more megapixels, featuring interchangeable lenses and advanced internal software, blow away today's camera phones.

Photo enthusiasts (like myself) are likely to have at least two cameras -- a high end camera phone and a high end digital camera. But when will camera phones be good enough to satisfy the needs of most people? Read Shane's comment about the awful quality of some camera phones.

A very interesting situation

This year three megapixel camera phones will be introduced in South Korea. Three megapixel devices are probably the "sweet spot" for digital cameras now. Will the first three megapixel camera phones be able to compete on photo quality and features with three megapixel digital cameras? I can't imagine they would. not.

But how good do camera phones have to be -- especially if the prices are subsidized by cellular operators -- to begin decimating the digital camera market? How many megapixels will be in camera phones in five years? And how will the enhancements -- flash, internal image enhancement software, zoom lenses, etc. -- shape up in 2009?

Personally, I don't expect a camera phone will be my only camera in five years. In five years maybe I'll have a 15 megapixel or 20 megapixel camera for when I spend hours photographing a single location. But for other people, how much is enough?

More than just photos

When examining the future of camera phones, you must consider their other capabilities. Camera phones will have increasingly better audio and video capabilities. They might become fairly respectable camcorders although single-purpose camcorders also will be smaller, cheaper and much better.

Camera phones will be able to receive streaming video (we'll go beyond EDGE and 1xEV-DO in five years). Camera phones will be a great PDA, and we're already seeing problems in the growth of single-purpose PDAs.

Will camera phones kill digital cameras in five years? Certainly not. But will they put a dent -- perhaps a huge hole -- in the digital camera market? Maybe.