iSuppli Q4 2009 Market Report

iSuppli published its Q4 2009 Image Sensors report. The market for area image sensors is predicted to decline from $7.4B and 1.4B units in 2008, to $6.0B and 1.3B units in 2009, resulting in a decrease of 15.5% in total area image sensor revenues in 2009.

DSCs remain the major application for CCDs, while mobile handsets use CMOS for mostly cost-sensitive reasons. Videoconferencing represents the second largest market application for CMOS sensors in terms of unit shipments, due to their inclusion in PC notebooks.

Mobile handsets are expected to remain the dominant application for CMOS sensors in the next five years as come 2013, 50 percent of total CMOS image sensor revenue will come from the mobile handset market, up from 43 percent in 2009. In terms of units, mobile handsets will account for approximately 78 percent of total CMOS image sensor units in 2009 and will occupy a similar amount five years from now.

ISuppli also presents a resolution trends chart: