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Georgina Lee

The name Polaroid is synonymous with instant photography, just as Xerox is with  photocopying.
 But an Italian expatriate is about to change this commonly held perception, with a plan to sell a Hong Kong-designed digital camera under the famous brand name.
Next month, World Wide Licenses  (WWL) will begin selling a Polaroid digital camera that contains an image sensor capable of producing pictures with an image quality roughly equivalent to those captured on traditional film, according to managing director Giovanni Tomaselli.
The new camera, the Polaroid x530, is claimed to be the world's first consumer 4.5-megapixel point-and-shoot model to incorporate a three-layer direct image sensor produced by Foveon.
Introduced in 2002, the Foveon X3 image sensor has previously been used only in 'professional class' digital cameras. 
Foveon vice-president of marketing Eric Zarakov said that, before the x530, the X3 sensor was used only in products made by Sigma, a manufacturer of professional cameras. 
'This is the first non-Japanese camera, with a non-Japanese sensor, that can deliver image quality equivalent to a Japanese camera,' said Mr Zarakov, who started talking with WWL two years ago about the collaboration. 
WWL employs about 60 Hong Kong and mainland engineers at its research and development centre in the Shenzhen Nanshan science park.
The company has been selling digital cameras under the Polaroid brand since 2002, two years after the company entered the market with its branded range Cool-iCam, developed in-house.
Mr Tomaselli said: 'Polaroid decided [against] marketing digital cameras, so they sold their licence to us in 2002.'
The company's British parent, The Character Group, initially resisted the idea of approaching Polaroid. 
But to reach his goal of claiming 3 per cent to 5 per cent of the global market for digital cameras, Mr Tomaselli said he had only two choices: either launch a major marketing campaign to build an in-house brand or acquire a name that was already well established. 
He chose the latter, and succeeded in convincing The Character Group's board of the strategy's advantages.
Mr Tomaselli said he wanted to break even on the Polaroid x530 within six months of launch. Starting next month, the x530 will be sold in Hong Kong, Germany, Japan and the United States, with the mainland  being targeted next year. But the company faces stiff competition as established brands such as Canon, Nikon, Panasonic and Olympus already dominate a market expected to grow to 50 million units by 2007 for the sub US$1,000 category. 
Mr Tomaselli said the  Polaroid x530 would stand out from the plethora of other digital cameras in the market. This was because the three pixel-layered image sensor and a newly developed chip meant the image sensors would directly capture the red, green and blue light at every pixel location, as opposed to recording just one of the  colours. 
This led to higher colour accuracy than other  cameras, he said. 
'Because we are using a niche technology [provided by Foveon], we believe we can charge a premium for the product,' he said.
The fact that Polaroid was not known for  digital cameras was not a problem, he said, adding that  survey of more than 1000 US adults last year by Omnibus International found the Polaroid brand ranked third as the preferred digital camera brand to purchase, after Kodak and Olympus. 
With two manufacturing plants in Shenzhen, Mr Tomaselli said WWL was ready to ship 100,000 units worldwide by year end.
General manager Elaine Wong said the next step was to incorporate a mobile phone into a digital camera, and hopefully launch it around 2006.



Hong Kong camera maker gives Polaroid a new image