Buoyed by increased spending power of consumers and availability of more options in the lower price range, the Indian digital camera market is expected to grow by over 50 per cent this year to touch 41 lakh units, according to a report by CyberMedia Research.

The size of the digital camera market was at 26.9 lakh units last year and grew by 65 per cent over the previous year, it said.

Of the 41 lakh units expected this year, 38.4 lakh units would be from the digital compact cameras while the remaining 2.6 lakh would be from DSLR cameras or professional cameras, the report said.

According to the market research firm's latest "Quarterly Digital Camera Market Review," the October-December 2010 period recorded a growth of 69 per cent over the same period in the previous year, touching an all time high of 8.45 lakh units for the first time in a quarter.

The digital camera price segment "below Rs 10,000" contributed around 75 per cent of total sales in the country during the October-December 2010 quarter, the study said.

"Digital camera vendors are innovating in terms of design, functionalities and technology, pushing out products to consumers at ever lower prices," CyberMedia Research Lead Analyst (India Digital Products Research) Nikhil Khurana said.

According to him there is an increasing acceptance of digital cameras amongst first time buyers in 'B' and 'C' class towns and have started to focus on strengthening their reach.

"This is expected to help the penetration of digital cameras to rise from the current level estimated to be below 5 per cent to 10 per cent by 2015," he added.

According to the report, the digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera, which are mostly used by professionals witnessed a significantly higher uptake, registering a growth of 120 per cent year-on-year.

"Multiple market forces have converged to drive the rise in sales of digital cameras. The most important ones are ? increase in availability and sharing of digital content, increase in 'real' spending power and reduction in average selling values," CyberMedia Research Associate Vice-President (Research and Advisory Services) Anirban Banerjee said.

In the point-and-shoot (P&S) category or digital compact camera category, Sony enjoyed the largest share with 31 per cent during quarter followed by Nikon with 24 per cent, Kodak 13 per cent and Canon 12 per cent.

In the DSLR category, Nikon was the market leader with 51 per cent share in terms of unit shipments during followed by Canon with a 46 per cent.