Futuresource: 90% of camera users are sharing their images

With this in mind, Futuresource Consulting recently carried out consumer research into photo-sharing habits in the UK, Germany and France. The study focused on the images that ultimately have a high personal value to the consumer: those that are shared, as opposed to the billions that remain dormant on computer hard drives or memory cards. Survey questions were also included to pinpoint the features that consumers will look for in their next digital camera.

The research indicates that consumers are embracing many new ways to share their personal photos; printed media continues to play an important role in photo sharing, though digital dominates. Some of the key findings mirror the trends found in previous waves of research, with the vast majority – around 90% – of respondents across the UK, France and Germany sharing images with friends and family. Respondents continue to use a wide variety of methods to share their images, with females more likely to be sharing than males. The main method of sharing for French and German respondents is via laptop or desktop PC, while UK respondents mainly share using websites and e-mail.

In terms of image capture, approximately a third of respondents in each of the territories used a cameraphone to capture up to a quarter of the images that they then went on to share. This varies quite considerably with age, with respondents aged 55 or older the least likely to be capturing images with a cameraphone, with over a third using their digital camera for all of their image capture. Respondents aged 16 to 34 are more likely than any other age group to be capturing 75 to 100% of their images with a cameraphone. Notably, a quarter of respondents in each country are capturing all of their images using a digital camera only.