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Published on October 23, 2007

Christopher Morgan, senior vice president, imaging and printing of HP Asia-Pacific and Japan, said HP Snapfish was a printing service that allowed consumers to order prints of their photos via an online network.

"This is the first step and HP will continue to revitalise the retail space," said Morgan. He said the retail print service was a new product that provided free membership, free photo storage, free photo sharing, and a "fun and easy" interface.

Bala Parthasarathy, vice president for digital imaging at the company and developer of Snapfish, said the service started in the United States in 2003. There are now more than 7,000 retail stores in the US, Europe and Asia, with more than 40 million registered users at the Snapfish website. There are more than 26 billion pictures stored in the Snapfish database and over 4 petabytes of storage.

He said that in Asia-Pacific, the company had announced Snapfish services in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. There are more than 80 Snapfish locations in Australia. The firm also plans to provide this service to China and India in the next few months before expanding to other countries in the Asia-Pacific.

"Snapfish creates the consumer experience for the future," said Parthasarathy. "Customers can pay for photo printing using credit or debit cards."

The firm also provides HP Photosmart Express Kiosks for retail photo shops. The kiosks allow consumers to print their photographs themselves from digital media devices such as cameras, memory cards, CDs, DVDs, USB drives and Bluetooth devices. The kiosks accept all major credit and debits cards for online transactions. The kiosks print photos at a speed of five seconds per print, and the prints are said to last for 100 years.

"The kiosks deliver ease of use, a friendly interface and convenience for customers. They started in Asia four months ago. The [photo] market is a very good opportunity and changes very fast," said Morgan.

Jirapan Boonnoon, The Nation, Singapore