Western Europe: Instamatic v. Rapid

More leisure, prosperity and travel have created so many shutterbugs throughout the world that the makers of cameras and film are frantically vieing with one another to wintheir allegiance. The latest struggle involves more than two dozen firms, ranges over three continents — and concerns a new camera concept that is almost certain to transform the industry.

It all began when giant Eastman Kodak last year introduced its new Instamatic camera, which eliminated the fussing that bedevils many amateurs. It has film cartridges that pop in without threading and out without rewinding, and a device that automatically sets the lens opening. In the new, consumer-oriented Europe, the modestly priced ($9 to $75) Instamatic clicked immediately: in the first year some half-million were sold in camera-making Germany, where only 49% of all families own cameras (v. 85% in the U.S.). It has also been a big success worldwide: U.S. exports of still cameras have tripled since early 1963 to 1,400,000 per year, largely because of the Instamatic.

Kodak’s competitors quickly got the picture, concluded that the Instamatic was tapping a potentially vast market of people who had never before bought cameras. West Germany’s Agfa, which had leisurely been developing a cartridge system of its own, rushed the project to completion, made an agreement with 27 European and Japanese firms to introduce a competitive series of “Rapid” cartridge cameras. About half a million Rapids—which are priced roughly in line with Kodak’s less expensive models—were sold in Europe during the first ten weeks they were on sale. The two new camera lines already vie with each other in West German show windows.

Kodak is not unduly upset by the turn of events, figures that the introduction of cartridge-loading cameras is such a revolutionary advance that it will result in more business for everyone. Besides, Kodak film is the world’s biggest seller: it is the only film that fits the Instamatic, and it does not fit the Rapid. Mindful of such facts and anxious to click both ends of the market, eleven major Japanese producers who are licensed to make Rapid cameras last week signed up with Kodak to begin producing Instamatics too.