Is the era of the 2 million pixel webcams coming soon?

The 2 million pixel class webcams are now hot products in the market. We can see this at product booths in home electronics stores. We will explore the market trend by using “BCN Ranking.”

The 2 million pixel class webcams acquired 20% of sales amount shares

Currently, the best selling product is the “QCAM-200” series by Logicool. It is the only product that can use “High Quality Video” function. When we use the “QCMAM-200” with the latest version of Skype 3.6 for Windows, we have clearer and brighter picture quality than their usual products. The Press Officer at Logicool considered the global merit of Skype for their product tie-up and said, “We have the background of improving the PC specification involved in the popularization of the Internet.”

Actually, Microsoft was the one that occupied the 2 million pixel class webcam market until July 2007. However, Logicool has increased their share since August 2007 and now have about 90% of the market share. Their units sold share this February was 7.8% and the sales amount share was 20.6%, which increased from last August.

In seventh, eighth and tenth place for units sold share in February were 2 million pixel models. In seventh place was the “QCAM-200R” with 1.9% share. It can track moving objects and adjust it to the center of the screen. Eighth place was the “QCAM-200S- HS” with 1.8% share. It has a wide angle view so that it can capture the face of more than one person in a frame. Both products have Carl Zeiss lenses that can display clear picture with little distortion.

BUFFALO took the top share for units sold share

The 2 million pixel webcams are becoming hot products in the near future. However, based on units sold data, the 300 thousand pixel webcams are the most popular models in the current market. The best selling product in February was BUFFALO KOKUYO SUPPLY’s 300 thousand pixel webcam, the “BWC30L01SVA” with 23.8% share. It has been the best seller since last September.

From last August, Logicool and BUFFALO KOKUYO SUPPLY were competing for the market of units sold share. BUFFALO regained the top share last December and maintains about 40% of shares. Logicool has about 20% share; ELECOM follows them with 15% share. The shares of SANWA SUPPLY and Microsoft are behind the leaders.

Basically, most webcams in the market can be used for Skype, Windows Live Messenger or other kind of free phone call services. As Logicool’s Press Officer said, “We are still providing the function that can upload pictures to ‘YouTube.’ In the future, we would like to propose various uses for our webcams such as photo effects.” The enjoyment and popularity of webcams will continue to spread.（Original Text by Makiko Inoue）