Film cameras give way to digital technology

Britain's biggest electricals retailer Dixons Group said today it would no longer stock 35mm film-based cameras due to weak demand.

Dixons, originally a photographic studio, said digital cameras now outsell 35mm cameras by 15 to one.

"Last year, we pulled the plug on video recorders, but today's announcement is in many ways a more sentimental event," said Bryan Magrath, marketing director at Dixons.

Sales of 35mm cameras peaked in the UK in 1989 when 2.9 million cameras were sold, but sales have since fallen as digital camera prices come down while image quality improves.

"Time and technology move on... 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," Magrath said.

Dixons, which opened its first outlet in Southend, east of London in 1937, said it had tested 100 customers and 93 per cent could not tell the difference between digital and 35mm prints.

The retailer said it would continue to sell a limited range of 35mm cameras until its stocks ran out. Some specialist 35mm cameras would continue to be sold at the company's tax-free airport stores.

Photographic goods retailer Jessops Plc, floated on the London Stock Exchange at 155 pence per share in late October following several years of strong sales growth boosted by the boom in digital cameras.

However, shares in Jessops lost nearly a third of their value in March when the company said a slowdown in consumer spending had hit sales of digital cameras with profit margins squeezed by the need to keep up with price-cutting competition.

Shares in Dixons closed up 0.3 per cent at 155-1/2 pence on Monday, while shares in Jessops fell 0.3 per cent to 82-1/4p.

- REUTERS