Webcams

We first gave out award for this category in 2002, and Logitech has been reigning supreme ever since, so no exceptions this year. Mercury, which was in the club till last year has moved out this year. We had also noticed last year that other players had closed the gap with Logitech. However, this year, the gap has again widened. Creative seems to be on an upswing, moving up to the runner-up position from being number five last year. Even Kodak has moved up one position from last year, while both IBM and Kodak have slipped down toward the end. 

We've got some interesting data on the brand loyalty front as well. The overall brand loyalties in this category seem to be low. While Logitech reflected 100% brand loyalty last year, it's slipped significantly this year to 64%. Most of the shift of existing Logitech owners seems to be toward either Creative or Kodak. The interesting thing here is that the existing owners of Creative want to shift either to Kodak or Logitech. A similar trend was observed between IBM and Kodak. This sort of a preference reminds you of the saying that grass on the other side always look greener. Or is it that webcams are giving way to digicams as both spaces are fast converging. 

If you remember, last year we predicted that this would happen and guessed that this might happen in two years. One year is gone, and from the looks of brand loyalty, our prediction may just be right. So next year will be interesting to watch.