The online photo album market - Italy

The online photo album market is a sub-segment of the photo album market. It refers to the various websites offering the possibility to create more or less standardized photo albums. Depending on the provider, the customer can choose the layout of the photos, the format of the photo album and the material used. The digital companies are then in charge of printing, binding and shipping the album to the customer. The market is relatively fragmented and competition is relatively intense given the large number of players in the market. The market is made up of players specialising in this sector (such as Photosì), but the market has since been populated by larger players such as Amazon, Google or even historical players in the photography market. Driven by the increased use of smartphones with ever higher quality cameras, Italians are taking an increasingly higher number of photos. According to a study by Nokia, Italians take an astonishing 50 photos per month, approximately. This trend has supported the growth of the market for online photo albums. Especially as a consequence of the quarantine during the Covid-19 pandemic, the demand has increased sharply, reaching 3 times the value of 2019. However, the Italian market is still marginal compared to the global and Western Europeans markets. As a matter of fact, Italy is only 6th in terms of market size in Wester Europe, with Germany leading the European panorama.  Furthermore, the offer is diversifying, from the creation of simple standardized photo albums to customized ones for which customers can chose most of the features, add decorations and captions to give it a more DIY feel. Furthermore, many players offer customers the opportunity to choose the platform on which they will build their photo album, which include websites, apps or dedicated softwares.