Continuing with my pre-PMA commentary on the state of the DSLR market, we move back to Kodak. Last week Kodak issued a press release in Europe entitled "Kodak Looks to the Future." The methodology essentially looked at the existing market, split it into use segments, and predicted how that will evolve into the future.
I was intrigued by two throw-away lines in the press release: one-third of Eventographers have a DSLR, and the Digital Disciples are most likely to carry a DSLR. Funny thing is, these are the two largest groups Kodak identified, and about a third of them are using DSLRs. Put another way, ~33% of 74% of the market Kodak is looking at use DSLRs (that's about 25%, or one-quarter, of all digital camera users in their study). Meanwhile, another key category--Happy Snappers--apparently are mostly using camera phones, which Kodak doesn't make. (One emailer pointed out that Kodak has several technology contributions to a few upcoming camera phones.)
So why is that Kodak got out of the DSLR market? Exactly which of the five groups does Kodak's current lineup match up against? Unfortunately, Kodak appears to have put themselves in a position where they wish to compete by targeting sub-segments of sub-segments of the market. That's not a road to being a major player in digital cameras, IMHO.