The market for digital photography is booming. Over the last year the percentage of German households possessing digital cameras increased from 49 to 52%. 43.4 million Germans above the age of ten, that is 58% of the entire German population, use digital cameras. On average, every German takes 55 photos per month and 7.3 million Germans even take more than 100 pictures each month. All in all the number of digital photos taken every month amounts to almost 2.4 billion. These figures are the findings of a representative study conducted on behalf of the German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM).
According to BITKOM, digital photography is not only one of Germans favourite past time activities, but at the same time professional photographers discover it for their businesses. Photo prints are re-discovered too. Almost 19 million Germans print their photos out themselves at home. More than 23 million order prints of their photos – either from home over the internet or directly at the photo shop using so-called print stations. 4.4 millions even order complete photo books. 37 million store their pictures on hard-drives, CDs, DVDs or portable storage mediums. And about three million people store their pictures exclusively on the chip card of their cameras. 