PMA Takes Printers' Pulse

By Staff -- TWICE, 6/2/2008

JACKSON, MICH. — Fewer digital camera owners are making prints from their digital images, according to PMA.

The firm's 2008 U.S. Digital Imaging Survey noted that 60 percent of U.S. households made prints from their digital images last year, down from 65.5 percent in 2006.

However, more households made prints from digital camera images in 2007 compared to 2006 thanks to the increasing penetration of digital cameras (from 56.6 percent of homes in 2006 to 66.2 in 2007).

PMA also found that consumers are "doing less with the prints they do make." Of those making prints, 79 gave them away, 56 percent stuck them in a frame and 60 percent dropped them in an album — figures all lower than the year-ago period, PMA said.

However, consumers are viewing print more as a storage medium in the digital era, with a higher percentage of households reporting that they store prints in boxes or envelopes for the long term.

Not surprisingly, PMA found that households with young children were more likely to print. Ninety percent of households with children younger than six reported making prints of their digital images to share with friends and family.