nspired by lavish marketing campaigns, such as Vodafone�s David Beckham ads, the number of mobile camera phone users across the world has more than doubled in the past year, says a recent research in the UK. But the research shows that the frequency with which camera phone owners are sending picture messages is decreasing. A year ago 8 per cent of early adopters were sending a photo message once a day, which has dropped to 3 per cent. More than one in three users admit to never using their camera-enabled phone to send pictures, up from a quarter a year ago.

Figures from Continental Research show that there are now more than 7.5 million handsets in circulation in the UK capable of taking pictures, up from 3 million a year ago. But the figures also show that most people are using the phones as pocket photo albums, taking pictures and storing them in the handset�s memory to show to friends and relatives. Given this, the average number of photo messages sent per user per month has dropped from 6.1 to 3.7. ... more