Cameraphones pass milestone in digital photo market.

New research shows that for the first time, global sales of cell phones with built-in cameras surpassed sales of conventional digital cameras in the first half of 2003, a milestone in the mobile-phone industry's drive to capture a chunk of the photography market, The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to Dow Jones Business News, mobile-phone service providers are subsidizing the retail price of cameraphones in the hope that they will also be used to send pictures, generating additional service revenues. But some analysts say there are signs that the novelty of cameraphones quickly wears off. Figures released by NIT DoCoMo Inc., Japan's largest mobile-phone service provider, suggest that consumers with suitable handsets sent an average of only four pictures each during July. Analysts at Citigroup Inc.'s Smith Barney unit estimate that the equivalent figure in Western Europe is five pictures per individual a month.