Challenge
A leading home printer manufacturer was weighing the opportunities presented by improvements in camera phone adoption and picture quality. But the company did not know the potential market size for home printing of camera phone pictures, a segment that published research did not yet cover. What’s more,it was not familiar with the landscape of potential collaborators and competitors in the target space.
Approach
Empirical Path first interviewed the client’s strategy managers to better understand the opportunity, its challenges, and the audience for the research. We also requested data on revenue and margins per photo printed, to ensure that market research results were expressed in the most meaningful metrics possible.
Next, our consultants performed a search of the literature, including syndicated research reports, press releases, equity analyst reports, and financial disclosures. These sources allowed us to build into a financial model most of the drivers of market size, such as camera phone adoption, usage, and image quality. Many of these figures were synthesized from multiple outside estimates, for an added degree of reliability.
But the literature lacked a key figure: printing of camera phone images. The client embraced Empirical Path's proposed methodology: forecasting the incidence of consumers printing camera phone photos based on their printing of similar resolution photos from digital cameras early in that category’s development. We also generated conservative and aggressive scenarios to account for perceptions of how many images from each type of device were worth keeping, based on qualitative research on the occasions of use for dedicated versus mobile phone cameras.
With a complete forecast of camera phone image printing in hand, Empirical Path next turned to mapping the landscape of hardware, software, and service providers relevant to the market. Based on the players and their incentives, we laid out a range of options for the client, from manufacturing its own camera phone handset to allying with wireless carriers seeking incremental revenue per unit. We also unearthed some competitive forays into the target market that were not widely known.
Results
The client was surprised that Empirical Path’s market research revealed a less substantial opportunity than expected, a finding that we previewed early in the process. Nevertheless, strategy managers used Empirical Path’s PowerPoint deliverable to brief senior executives who had championed the idea. The backup documentation we prepared answered their detailed questions, and the company decided against an investment in what turned out to be a marginal business opportunity.
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