For an article (link removed for browsing safety) that appeared in Malaysia, apparently one heck of a lot of you saw it and forwarded it to me, so I'm going to comment on it here rather than answer a lot of individual emails.
Cameras started appearing in phones in the late 90's, about the same time we got some hybrid digital SLRs. They share a fairly parallel history with DSLRs in many respects. Yet from the beginning they've had a difference: the ability to communicate what they photograph. Way back in 1997, one of my Silicon Valley compatriots Philippe Kahn (of Borland fame) shared a camera phone image from the birth of his daughter with his friends and acquaintances. Virtually all of us who saw that photo went "Aha!" I've been thinking about modular, communicating, and programmable pretty much ever since then.
The questions at hand, though, are several of managing director Tsunoda's statements, including "Nikon had been discussing the matter over the last 10 years and found that mobile phones actually helped to increase the company's business." In one sense, this is correct. Digital resurrected photography and digital cameras resurrected Nikon's imaging business. But a number of you are attributing causality to Tsunoda's statement (as was Tsunoda, I think), and that would be incorrect. Digital sensors are the triggering element in the rise of digital cameras of all kinds, in phones, compacts, and DSLRs. The switch from film and its dependence on chemicals to digital and its dependence on computers changed all cameras. It wouldn't have mattered if mobile phones did or didn't exist, DSLR sales still would have rose to where they are today.
"...mobile phones could be the starting or entry point for people" is indeed a valid statement. It isn't could, it is often is. As with any product that gets mass market awareness, smaller subsets of that market later demand higher capability and quality than the mass product provides them.
But that's where I'm going to push a different direction than Tsunoda and disagree with Yiak's statement ("the Facebook phenomenon [helps] sales of DSLR cameras"). Today's youth is the mass market for cell phone cameras. A cell phone is usually their first camera. They are driving images to their Web sites and friends directly, both through the programmable and communicating aspects of their cell phone cameras. As they realize that they want more performance from their camera, where do they go?
Two larger cell phone makers also make cameras: Samsung and Sony. Those are the most likely brands they would go to if they needed more camera (Apple, Nokia, and RIM would also succeed with a dedicated communicating camera, I think.)
Nikon and Canon, who dominated the camera market, have no visible presence in the products or image sharing technologies that are driving future camera demand. Thus, Nikon would be counting on a "brand leap" to continue growing their camera business, and that's going to get more and more difficult to achieve, I think. Especially if there's an easier alternative. Fortunately for Nikon, to date there isn't.