Kodak, Sony in Photo Finish

Eastman Kodak Co. is nipping at Sony Corp.’s heels in the ballooning U.S. digital camera market.

The world’s biggest film manufacturer, aiming to become the No. 1 seller of point-and-shoot digital cameras on its home turf this year, almost drew level with Japanese front-runner Sony in third-quarter U.S. camera shipments, market research firm IDC said Friday.

Sony delivered 1 million consumer digital cameras in the third quarter, only 10,000 more than Kodak, IDC said. Canon Inc. ranked third with 800,000 shipments, followed by Olympus Corp. with 585,000.

IDC, based in Framingham, Mass., estimates that 24 million digital cameras will be sold in the United States this year, up from nearly 17 million in 2003, and sales could jump to $8 billion from $5.7 billion.

Although profit is harder to measure, “the more cameras you get out there, the more likely” a company can generate sales of printers, paper, ink and other high-margin accessories, IDC analyst Christopher Chute said.

Kodak’s digital camera business “crossed the line into profitability” late last year and expects to stay on the “positive side of that line going forward,” said Greg Westbrook, general manager of Kodak’s digital capture business.

“We had a really strong third quarter,” Westbrook said. “We’ll continue to pursue that top spot in the U.S. during this year.”