UK. Dixons, the UK’s leading high street retailer of consumer technology, yesterday announced that it will no longer sell 35mm film-based cameras.
Dixons will retail a limited range of 35mm cameras for the next two months or until stocks last. But after that only the retailer’s tax free airport stores will continue to retail a limited specialist range of 35mm cameras.
Cameras were the first products that Dixons sold when it opened its first outlet in Southend in 1937.
“Last year we pulled the plug on video recorders, but today’s announcement is in many ways a more sentimental event,” said Marketing Director Bryan Magrath. “35mm cameras were the first products we ever sold, and film processing has been a part of our lives for several decades. Time and technology move on, though, and digital cameras are now the rule rather than the exception. We have decided that the time is now right to take 35mm cameras out of the frame.”
The digital photography vs film photography debate has been raging in photographic circles for several years, Dixons said, with many professionals and purists favouring the 35mm camera. “But as technology progresses, the quality of digital photographs has improved enormously”¦ sales of digital cameras are now outstripping sales of 35mm cameras by 15 to 1,” the company said.
35mm camera sales peaked in the UK in 1989, when 2.9 million cameras sold, according to GfK. Since then sales have fallen, a trend that has accelerated since the advent of affordable digital cameras.
Three million pixel digital cameras are now available from Dixons for under £100. The cost of digital cameras has fallen dramatically and their image quality has risen substantially since they were first launched in the early 1990s.
A test of 100 customers carried out by Dixons revealed that 93% are now unable to tell the difference between digital prints and 35mm film prints. “Statistically, this tells us that there is no real difference in quality between digital and film,” said Magrath. “The digital camera, which delivers huge benefits thanks to its memory, speed, image quality and transferability of images, is a big winner with the millions of customers who shop with us every year.”
Industry estimates reveal that around three-quarters of all photographs are taken on holiday.
MORE ON DIXONS
BAA/Dixons to open two hi-tech concept stores in London Heathrow Airport – 28/04/05
