The REAL Numbers In The Digicam Game

I received the following email in response to the "NPD INTELECT Reports Nearly One Out of Five "High-End" Cameras Sold Is Digital" item we ran on 12/21/99:

Yes it's Ron Tussy again to tell you about a story I saw on your site concerning market data from Intelect and US DCAM market share. I don't know if you know this but it's our job to provide digital camera vendors and developers with market data and business development intelligence for the business planning that we provide. In doing so, we get to look at data not only developed from us, (Imerge Consulting Group) but also from all other data sources such as Intelect, etc. I can tell you in all honesty that Intelect does a fairly good job with most channels except the Internet.

Intelect has no method to track Internet sales and this has been a big weakness in their coverage starting last year. It also skews their data and market share. For example, we have Nikon in a dead heat with Fujifilm in the US for 1999 with 9% market share for unit volume each. Kodak is at about 14% when taking the Internet channel into consideration and Sony is at about 30% unit share. Agfa does not even show up with Intelect's top five, yet they have about 12% market share in units. We know this because we get much of our data from the original manufacturer and component suppliers which are paid on the units that they ship to vendors such as Agfa, etc.

Best Regards and Happy Holidays,

Ron Tussy
President & Principle Analyst
Imerge Consulting Group LLC