Smartphone camera makers see cars

YONGIN South Korea: South Korean smart phone camera makers are tapping the surging yet more technologically demanding market for vehicle cameras to dull the impact of slowing growth in global handset sales.

High-end cars can carry as many as eight cameras to visually aid parking or trigger emergency brakes. That number could reach 12 when cameras replace side-view mirrors, according to Mcnex Co Ltd, a phone camera supplier of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Korea’s biggest car camera maker.

As the technology reaches mid and lower-end cars, the market for vehicle cameras could grow seven-fold from 2011 to nearly $6.6 billion in 2018, said Techno Systems Research.

That amount can only rise with regulation such as compulsory rear cameras in the United States from 2018 to stop drivers backing into pedestrians. Also adding to demand will be the spread of camera-laden self-driving vehicles like those of Google Inc.

“We expect the vehicle camera market to experience explosive growth,” Lee Hyo-cheol, a principal research engineer at Korean auto parts maker Hyundai Mobis Co Ltd, told Reuters. But cameras have to be far more robust for cars than phones.