Parks Associates forecasts mobile imaging application market will exceed $500 million in revenue in 2013

U.S. consumers will spend more than $500 million in 2013 for imaging applications on their mobile phones, according to Parks Associates, which sees this market expanding beyond photo-sharing services to personalized content management and social networking applications.

Parks Associates’ new report Mobile Imaging: Platforms, Solutions, and Services finds consumers will use their camera-equipped mobile phones for a variety of applications over the next few years and they are willing to pay for enhancements such as photo-editing capabilities, comparison shopping, and social networking services.

The mobile application market will benefit from improved hardware. By 2013, almost 70% of handsets sold in the U.S. will include a camera of at least two megapixels.

Mobile Imaging: Platforms, Solutions, and Services analyzes the evolution of the camera phone function and its impact on image-related applications and services on mobile handsets.