50 Percent of Worldwide Mobile Phones Will Have a Camera in 2006 and 81 percent by 2010, Gartner

Worldwide sales of camera phones will account for 48 percent of total worldwide mobile phone sales in 2006, growing to 81 percent by 2010, according to new forecasts from Gartner Inc. Worldwide sales of camera phones, which have almost tripled since 2004, will reach 460 million in 2006, an increase of 43 percent from 2005. This trend is set to continue, leading to sales of one billion camera phones by 2010.

“A camera is a feature that consumers expect to see in new devices whether they are interested in using it or not,” said Carolina Milanesi, principal research analyst at Gartner. “With improved quality of camera phone pictures, users can now really enjoy viewing pictures on their PCs, printing them or uploading pictures directly from their phones onto their blog, thanks to services such as Flickr.”