The dawning of the digital age has hammered Taiwan’s photograph processing sector, with the number of photo developing outlets around the country dropping by more than half in recent years.
The convenience of digital cameras has led most people in Taiwan to discard their traditional film cameras, triggering a sharp decline in processing outlets’ revenue from film developing. A majority of photo shop owners have been unable to survive the transition to the new technology and have been forced out of business as a result.
Liu Tsan-huang, standing member of the Taiwan province photography industry association, said that over the last several years, the number of photo developing outlets around the country has plummeted by almost two-thirds, from more than 4,000 to fewer than 1,500 at present.
Liu said that in order to stay in the game, photo shop owners have had to spend nearly NT$5 million (US$156,250) on new equipment to handle digital camera related services. In addition, they have had to fork out some NT$100,000 a year on equipment maintenance, he noted.
Income from this new source of business has been unable to make up for the losses resulting from the virtual disappearance in demand for conventional film processing services, which once formed the backbone of these photo shop owners’ business, Liu said.
Chen Yue-hua, manager of a photo shop in Xindian City, Taipei County, said she heard some photo processing outlets used to get between 100 and 200 rolls of films per week to develop, but nowadays they are lucky if they get a single roll a day.
“Developing film has become almost a secondary business for these shops,” Chen said.
With revenue dropping by between one-half and two-thirds, most photo shop owners who rented store space have already gone out of business, with only those that own their stores outright being able to survive.
These photo shop owners have had to continually reinvent themselves by coming up with new and specialized services, such as photo calendar printing, photo mugs and T-shirts, in order to stay afloat.
Nevertheless, no one seems able to guarantee that this new source of business will be able to stem the continuing decline of the photo processing sector in Taiwan. (SB)