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June 21, 2006 – The Photo Marketing Association reported Monday that the average income of digital camera buyers continues to fall. The report states that the income bracket of digital camera purchasers has been steadily shifting to the lower income populations because of cheaper digital camera prices.
'The middle class U.S. consumer can now afford a digital camera,' PMA research analyst Emily Fassanella said in the press release.
In 2005, 48 percent of first time digital camera buyers came from households that earned less than $50,000. Of all digital camera purchases made last year, approximately half of those sales were made by repeat buyers, replacing their film or older digital cameras. Twenty percent of the total purchases were made by people buying digital cameras for the first time.
'The data demonstrates that digital camera sales are not just the result of affluent households purchasing replacement models; rather, more of mass market consumers are acquiring digital camera[s],' Fassanella said. Indeed, seven percent of last year’s digital camera shoppers fell in an income bracket of under $15,000, indicating that even very low income families were purchasing digital cameras.
While middle and even lower class members enter into the digital camera market, upper classers continue to dominate the sales. Remaining consistent in all five years in the study, from 2001 to 2005, the majority of digital camera purchases were made by shoppers in six-figure households. Last year, a quarter of digital camera buyers lived in a household of $125,000 or above.