Canon says inkjet printer sales falling, but sees reversal from October

MUMBAI: Japanese digital imaging firm Canon has said it is witnessing a decline in its inkjet printer sales in the domestic market, in line with the falling personal computer sales, but it hopes to reverse the trend from October through household sales.

"With PC market saturating, the function of inkjets is also diminishing and so are their sales. Declining PC market is threatening this segment now, but using inkjet multifunction and new products we will try to increase sales again from the fourth quarter (beginning October)," Canon India president and Chief Executive, Kensaku Konishi told PTI.

Canon will promote sales of inkjet printers to household users through exclusive retail showroom `Canon Image Square'.

"At the moment our market share of inkjet printer is around 15 percent. We will try to acquire 20 percent by end of this year," Konishi added. The domestic digital printing market is around Rs 1,000 crore and growing at 25 pc annually.

Canon is also planning to have a bigger slice of the market in the laser printer and the copier machine segments this year. "Our market share in laser printer segment is 30 percent and in copier machine we have 24 percent. We are expanding our market share especially for the copier machine to 25 percent and in laserjet printers we are trying to get 35 percent of the market share," he said.

It is eyeing a revenue of Rs 1,650 crore this year, as against last year's Rs 1,260 crore, he said.

"Copier machine sales will rise 30 percent from last year and laserjet printer around 6 per cent up," he said, adding that copier machines and printers contributed to 60 percent of sales and the balance came from cameras. He further said the sales are increasing 35 percent on year, and the company expects the trend to continue for another four-five years.

Konishi also said Canon plans to enter the domestic medical equipment space to expand its portfolio. According to Canon Website, its medical systems division currently offers a range of digital radiography systems for radiographic applications.