Kodak built the first digital camera in 1975, but its profits came from film. Digital and smartphones broke that model; it filed Chapter 11 on 19 January 2012.
George Eastman sold a 25-dollar camera loaded for 100 pictures. Owners mailed it back; Kodak developed, printed and reloaded it.
The 1-dollar Brownie made photography a mass hobby. Film at 15 cents a roll, plus processing and prints, earned the profit.
The first commercially successful amateur colour film. Kodak controlled the chemistry and much of the processing.
Engineer Steven Sasson built an 8-pound prototype. It recorded a 100 x 100 pixel image to cassette tape in 23 seconds.
No. The 1.3-megapixel DCS came in 1991, the consumer DC40 in 1995 and EasyShare in 2001. Kodak led US digital camera sales in 2005.
Revenue peaked at about 16 billion dollars in 1996. Market value reached about 30 billion in 1997.
Phones made the separate camera unnecessary. Photos moved to screens and social apps, not Kodak paper.
On 19 January 2012, Kodak and its US units filed for Chapter 11 with a 950-million-dollar Citigroup loan. In February it quit making digital cameras.
About 1,100 patents raised 527 million dollars. Consumer film went to Kodak Alaris. Kodak emerged on 3 September 2013.
After an August 2025 going-concern scare, Kodak reported 2025 revenue of 1.069 billion dollars, mostly from commercial printing.
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