The camcorder market remains one of the most complex and dynamic Consumer Electronic (CE) categories, despite witnessing fairly modest unit growth in recent years. Now, the emergence of a new breed of low-cost, back-to-basics, pocket video camera (PVC) is connecting with consumers. "With the death knell sounding for traditional tape-driven camcorders and DVD giving way to HDD and Flash-based devices, it's the pocket video camera segment that's really leading the charge," says David Watkins, a senior analyst at Futuresource Consulting. Accounting for just 5 percent of total U.S., Japan and Western Europe camcorder shipments in 2006, they expect this to swell to 40 percent by 2010, equating to more than 7 million units shipped across the three regions next year. A range of factors is driving this step change, including the ever-increasing popularity of Web 2.0 sites with video upload capability -- as PVCs simply plug into a computer and the video can be uploaded dir...
TMT Market Research and Analysis