Overrank
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A discussion came up in comments on one of the DPR articles about how many rolls of film Kodak sell now. As you might imagine these numbers are pretty hard to come by but it’s possible to have a go at estimating it from publicly available articles -
In Table 7 of KODAK VS. FUJI: THE BATTLE FOR GLOBAL MARKET SHARE by Thomas C. Finnerty. https://pdgciv.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/tfinnerty2.pdf it says that around 2,219 million rolls of film were sold in 1999, and elsewhere estimates that Kodak has 33% of the worldwide market in 1999 (I’m assuming 1999 is “peak film”)
In the New York Times it says that “AMERICANS buy 850 million rolls a year in 2003” which fits in with Table 7 in the Finnerty paper https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/26/...is-digital-eclipsing-the-moment-at-kodak.html
In the Phoblograpger in 2025 it said that sales of Kodak’s consumer film had dropped to 1% of their peak “Consumer film (i.e. Kodak Gold 200 and UltraMax 400) sales have dropped to less than 1% of what they were in the peak years” - https://www.thephoblographer.com/2015/04/23/manufacturers-talk-state-film-photography-industry/ It also says that the professional film sales declined less
In Kosmophoto in 2020 it said the “Eastman Kodak’s still film production more than doubled in the last four years (2015 - 2019)” https://kosmofoto.com/2020/01/eastm...ion-more-than-doubled-in-the-last-four-years/
So a worst case for those numbers (I.e. assuming the drop in sales for ColorPlus etc we’re consistent across all films ) then multiplying all this together would indicate that Kodak is selling somewhere around 14.8 million rolls of film a year.
Does that fit in with what people think ? Are there any other statistics available ? I did find a number which indicated that the equivalent of 80million rolls of film are made a year by Kodak, but this would include all the movie film that Kodak manufacturers
In Table 7 of KODAK VS. FUJI: THE BATTLE FOR GLOBAL MARKET SHARE by Thomas C. Finnerty. https://pdgciv.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/tfinnerty2.pdf it says that around 2,219 million rolls of film were sold in 1999, and elsewhere estimates that Kodak has 33% of the worldwide market in 1999 (I’m assuming 1999 is “peak film”)
In the New York Times it says that “AMERICANS buy 850 million rolls a year in 2003” which fits in with Table 7 in the Finnerty paper https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/26/...is-digital-eclipsing-the-moment-at-kodak.html
In the Phoblograpger in 2025 it said that sales of Kodak’s consumer film had dropped to 1% of their peak “Consumer film (i.e. Kodak Gold 200 and UltraMax 400) sales have dropped to less than 1% of what they were in the peak years” - https://www.thephoblographer.com/2015/04/23/manufacturers-talk-state-film-photography-industry/ It also says that the professional film sales declined less
In Kosmophoto in 2020 it said the “Eastman Kodak’s still film production more than doubled in the last four years (2015 - 2019)” https://kosmofoto.com/2020/01/eastm...ion-more-than-doubled-in-the-last-four-years/
So a worst case for those numbers (I.e. assuming the drop in sales for ColorPlus etc we’re consistent across all films ) then multiplying all this together would indicate that Kodak is selling somewhere around 14.8 million rolls of film a year.
Does that fit in with what people think ? Are there any other statistics available ? I did find a number which indicated that the equivalent of 80million rolls of film are made a year by Kodak, but this would include all the movie film that Kodak manufacturers
