Camera Phone Ownership and Usage Rising?

M:Metrics says Europeans and even Americans are using their cameraphones more, with nearly one third of cameraphone owners using picture messaging.

In recent years the mobile phone industry has been trying to diversify its revenue stream by offering a mutitude of services in addition to traditional voice callings. The “killer app” almost every mobile operator and handset maker embraced was cameraphones, but the industry has generally been a little underwhelmed by consumers’ response: recent studies indicate as few as 28 percent of cameraphone users send picture messages with their cameraphones, and finds customers aren’t rushing to embrace high-end data and media services.

Well, on the cameraphone front, maybe it’s a question of whether the viewfinder is 70 percent empty or 30 percent full. Mobile research firm M:Metrics studied cameraphone usage in he U.S., Germany, France, and the U.K. and finds that not only is cameraphone ownership rising (try buying a cell phone without a camera, these days!) but usage is also increasing with summer vacation season, particularly among folks whose cameraphones offer resolutions of one megapixel or more. According to M:Metrics, 50.7 percent of mobile subscribers in the four countries studied now own camera phones, an increase of 22 percent since February 2006. Some 30.5 percent of cameraphone users have sent a photo over the network – a figure not much different than the 28 percent reported elsewhere – but 44.3 percent of people using cameraphones with a resolution of one megapixel or more have sent a picture over the network. In other words, you’re more likely to send photo messages if your phone takes high quality pictures.

Overall, M:Metrics found that text messaging is the most popular non-voice application on mobile phones, although Americans lag far behind Europeans, with only 36.9 percent of U.S. mobile phone users reporting they’ve sent a text message, compared to nearly 70 to 85 percent of Europeans surveyed. But some 3.2 percent of American phone users report they’ve purchased wallpapers or screensavers for their phones: the number never goes about 2.8 percent in European countries surveyed.

Overall, M:Metrics found the Motorola RAZR is the most popular cameraphone in the U.S. and U.K., while the Nokia 6230 won out in Germany and French users like the Sagem my X-5. However, Nokia phones seem to convert more users into customers who pay to send photos from their phones: the top photo-sending phones are the Nokia 6630 in France, the Nokia 6280 in Germany, and the Nokia 6111 in the United Kingdom. What’s the top picture-sending phone in the U.S.? The Danger Sidekick II.