Only 10 of the 20 Taiwanese companies making digital cameras today will still be in the business in 2003, according to analysts familiar with the industry. Technology expenses, intense price competition and the pressure of shorter product cycles will weed out the weakest competitors. In preparing digital cameras for the market, manufacturers in Taiwan are concentrating on reducing power consumption, making cameras easy to carry, increasing camera resolution and providing cameras with extra functions. According to researchers at Taiwan's Market Intelligence Center (MIC), manufacturers in Taiwan produced 8.82 million digital cameras in 2001. MIC Analyst Yvonne Chen forecasts that production will soar 36.9 percent in 2002 to 12.08 million units. In 2003, Taiwanese production should climb another 20.7 percent to 14.58 million, according to MIC forecasts (Fig. 1).
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