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October
24, 2006. Damien Lynch in the Australian Financial Review filed a
report on the pxidigital® global project.
For the
full report download here
(PDF).
An
entrepreneur is taking on the big players with the launch of
digital kiosks that will process photos in four seconds. A
company founded by Adelaide-based Barrie Harrop has developed
self-contained, full-service kiosks for photo printing, editing,
storing and online sharing.
Mr Harrop
believes the pxidigital® kiosks will meet the growing need for
printing kiosks as world demand for digital cameras rises. However,
his company, Velocitimage, will be playing in a highly competitive
field against global giants like Hewlett-Packard.
HP
expects the retail photo printing market (including photo kiosk and
photo mini-labs) to be worth $US7.7 billion ($10.1 billion) by
2009.
According
to Mr Harrop, the attraction of his kiosks is that they produce
quality snaps in four seconds. The kiosks can be established in
shopping centres, hospitals, train stations and office foyers. They
will be aimed at people aged 18 to 28 with next-generation camera
phone handsets.
Up to
2000 kiosks will be franchised across Australia over the next three
years. Five franchise licences have already been granted in
Victoria. In addition, a heads of agreement for a master franchise
has been signed in Western Australia.
A master
franchise licensing agreement for 35,000 kiosks in China has been
signed, and another for between 1000 and 2000 kiosks in Canada is
pending. The company is in talks with a couple of corporations
about introducing 10,000 kiosks in Japan. Back
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