VIENNA, Va. — Digital camera users are not only printing more pictures from digital photo kiosks, they're printing more as profitable 5x7 and 8x10 enlargements, according to data released by Lucidiom Inc., creator of the Automated Photo Machine.
Lucidiom, which powers thousands of networked digital photo kiosks around the world, gathered the data from across its proprietary APM network and revealed that enlargement orders have grown 17 percent in the past year. The company also reported the average number of APM prints per order has risen from 37.97 in 2004 to 47.61 in 2005.
"Consumers are becoming more comfortable with digital photography in general and digital photo kiosks in particular," said Lucidiom president and chief technical officer Steve Giordano Jr. "These numbers demonstrate the business benefit of making it easy for consumers to order multiple print sizes on the same ordering screen. That's something we've incorporated in our APM software and I think it plays an important role in these figures."
Giordano also attributed the year-over-year growth in enlargement orders and prints-per-order to the industry's success in spreading the word about the importance of printing digital images.
"Whether it's an enlargement or a 4x6, it's still a printed picture," he said. "The fact that it's an enlargement is important for the photofinisher, because there's a higher margin on that print, but in terms of the consumer moving the digital file onto paper — a print is a print. Consumers are making more of them and that's good for businesses and consumers alike."
