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When
Kodak reported its third-quarter results on October 31st 2006 it
reported that Film and photofinishing system sales were $1.07
billion, down 21% from $1.35 billion, and that its
attention was firmly fixed on growing the size and profits of its
digital business.
Kodak's
sales totaled $3.2 billion, down 10% from the third quarter
of 2005, reflecting a sharp decline in traditional film
revenue.
On the
other hand, in September, Kodak announced plans to install 2,000
digital printing kiosks in about 1,000 Wal-Mart
stores.
 Kodak is said to have
about 80,000 retail photo kiosks worldwide designed to
handle memory cards, USB drives, compact disks, DVDs and wireless
printing via Bluetooth. "While the number of kiosks in Wal-Mart
stores is small, compared with Kodak's total number available,
placement of the equipment in the world's largest retailer should
improve future sales," said Forbes.
Jay
Vleeschhouwer, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, estimates
that Kodak's kiosk business generates about $500 million a
year.
The Photo Marketing
Association International said the volume of prints from
digital images increased to 1.3 billion in July, a 50% increase
from a year ago. Included in the total is the web-to-retail
channel which increased 368% year-over-year to 140
million prints e.g. Kodak's EasyShare, Shutterfly, Snapfish,
Flickr.
In fact
the PMAI reported that In the three months ending in July
2006, online-to-retail orders averaged 11% of all digital
prints made, including home.
That is an all-time
high for the channel, and the closest it has come to matching the
online-to-mail market share. Online-to-retail does not appear to be
eroding other online and retail print method market share though;
home printing is the only method that has consistently lost
market share over time.
For
Kodak, success in retail digital kiosks, particularly in Japan and
China, means survival, otherwise the job cuts and corporate
restructuring will continue unabated.
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