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News from Japan: Photo Book Printing Big Business
At the photography business trade-show in Tokyo, Mr. Masahi Kitamura, Chairman and CEO of Kitamura Co., Ltd. discussed the printing of “Photo Books” as a driver of growth. Photo Books are simply photo albums made from digital images, but with digital technology, they can be produced quickly and are now used not only for family pictures but to memorialize special events of any kind, business and social.
Kitamura, which owns over 1,000 retail outlets which combine camera equipment sales with studio services, photo work stations and printing services, expects to see photo book printing become over 50% of its business over the next several years to about US$40MM per year. Kitamura sees much of this growth coming from on-line delivery of the content from its customers. He also says that customers will use Kitamura’s service to digitize old photo albums in order to make multiple copies as well as to preserve the content. Prices for the printed photo books start at about US$10.00 for a small format book of twelve pages. Kitamura offers art-work and licensed characters from Pokemon and Hello Kitty for use on the covers and sees some potential licensing of stock images for this purpose.
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