Dixons to stop sales of 35mm cameras

The 35mm camera is dead. Long live the 35mm camera

8 August 2005 19:33 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Dixon's the UK high street retailer has announced the death of the 35mm film camera by announcing it will no longer sell 35mm film-based cameras.

Dixons reports that sales of digital cameras are now outstripping sales of 35mm cameras by 15 to 1 making it impractical to stock any longer.

"Last year, we pulled the plug on video recorders, but today's announcement is in many ways a more sentimental event," said Bryan Magrath, marketing director at Dixons. "35mm cameras were the first products we ever sold. Time and technology move on, though, and digital cameras are now the rule, rather than the exception. We have decided that the time is now right to take 35mm cameras out of the frame."

35mm camera sales peaked in the UK in 1989, when 2.9 million cameras sold, according to GfK. Since then sales have fallen, a trend that has accelerated since the advent of affordable digital cameras.

For sentimental shoppers keen to buy a piece of history, Dixons will retail a limited range of 35mm cameras for the next two months or until stocks last.

Dixons, originally a photographic studio, opened its first outlet in Southend in 1937. Cameras were the first products that Dixons sold.