Cell phone firms to boost high-resolution cameras.

Japanese sales of camera-equipped cell phones totaled 14.33 million units in 2002, accounting for 36 percent of total cell phone sales, with the percentage surging to 74 percent in January-March 2003. The popularity of such cell phones helped cause domestic shipments of low-end digital cameras

NTT DoCoMo Inc. and two other major cell phone companies are set to expand their lineups of cell phones with a built-in CCD camera featuring 1 million or more pixels. Sharp Corp. is expected to supply them with cell phone digital cameras with 2 million pixels, says the report.

The improved image quality of cell phones has already started impacting shipments of conventional camera models.

DoCoMo and J-Phone started selling cell phones with cameras featuring 1 million pixels or more in May. DoCoMo sold 1.27 million units of such cell phones by the end of July.

In October, DoCoMo will release cell phones with a camera featuring 1 million or more pixels, made by NEC Corp. and Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd., which has never before supplied such cameras to DoCoMo. J-Phone will also expand their lineup of such cameras in the months to come.