Release Issued by Lyra:

Camera phones fuel image-capture explosion but digital cameras rule for photo prints

Newton, MA, March 30, 2006 -- According to Lyra Research, the digital imaging authority, the number of digital images captured worldwide has grown from under 40 billion in 2002 to nearly 200 billion in 2005, and in 2009 close to half a trillion digital images will be captured. A key concern in the digital camera industry is the growing importance of camera phones, which accounted for virtually none of the images captured in 2002 but will account for close to 60 percent of the total in 2009. Lyra expects that many of these camera phone images will be short-lived, never making it to print, while digital cameras will remain the device of choice for consumers to capture images they actually care enough about to print.

'As camera phone penetration rises and their image quality improves, hundreds of millions of consumers around the world will become accustomed to grabbing spur-of-the-moment photos with their phones," explains Steve Hoffenberg, Lyra's director of consumer imaging research. 'But, for those precious family moments that people want to preserve for posterity by printing, they will still primarily turn to their digital cameras."

For more information on Lyra's CII, visit www.lyra.com