Dixons is to stop selling 35mm cameras in its normal retail outlets, saying that the non-digital market is "increasingly niche". Dixons will be a digital-only zone once current stocks of 35mms run out, it said.

Sales of digital cameras might be outstripping those of 35mm cameras - by 15:1, according to Dixon's spin doctors - but the market has not been especially buoyant in recent months. At the start of the year sales increased by just 0.1 per cent, hitting companies like camera-retailer Jessops especially hard.

Dixons said that the decision to stop selling 35mms was a sentimental one. A company spokesman said: "35mm cameras were the first products we ever sold and film processing has been a part of our lives for several decades. Time and technology move on, though, and digital cameras are now the rule rather than the exception."

The company will continue to sell some film cameras in duty-free shops at airports, it said.

In related news, Dixons CEO John Clare has seen the value of his pension pot soar in the last financial year, despite so-so results and sliding profits.

Clare's pension pot grew by £1.3m to £5.9m in the financial year, which translates to an annual pension of £393,000, when he retires. His salary also rose considerably: it was up 48 per cent to £901,000, the Daily Telegraph reports. ®

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