Standard size printer sales slide 6 per cent to 7.45 lakh units in Q2

MUMBAI: Shipments of standard size printers (A4) to the country declined by 6 per cent to 7.45 lakh units in the second quarter of the year, compared to 7.94 lakh units in the year-ago period, mainly due to greater demand for multi-function printers, says an industry report.


According to a CyberMedia Research report released today, HP maintained its leadership position in the overall A4 printer market with 47 per cent share in the country, followed by Canon (20 per cent) and Epson (13 per cent).

Attributing the fall in standard printers to the rising demand for the multi-function printer-copier-scanners (MFPs), the report said this is because the price differential between single function printers (SFPs) and MFPs has also been narrowing over time.

"Wi-Fi technology is now a stable and widespread feature in printers. Consumers want to be able to print remotely and wirelessly.

"The other important preference that has emerged is for duplex printing. Finally, touch-screen interfaces are also taking the place of buttons that control the advanced functions on high-end printers," said Maninder Singh, a company analyst.

New customer preferences are for printers that are able to support Wi-Fi, duplex printing and touch-screen interfaces, he added.

The dot matrix printers (DMPs) category witnessed the maximum fall of 28 per cent in the reported period. Epson was the category leader with 53 per cent share in unit shipments, followed by TVSe and WeP.

"The DMP market has stagnated and absence of deals and decreased government buying has seen the segment decline over the years. It is very unlikely that the DMP market will see growth before 2015," said Sumanta Mukherjee, another analyst with the company.

In the inkjet category, HP led the market with 52 per cent share, followed by Canon (23 per cent) and Epson (22 per cent) during the reported period.

Inkjet MFP sales grew 5 per cent, while single function printers saw a fall of 50 per cent during the same period.

Laser printers category saw HP retaining its top spot with 51 per cent units share, followed by Canon and Samsung.

While the laser printers category grew 6 per cent, laser single function printer sales declined 14 per cent, and laser MFP printer sales jumped 38 per cent.

"These numbers point to the trend of increasing demand for multi-function printers amongst customers with vendors like Ricoh, Konica Minolta, Brother and Pantum launching new models and pursuing aggressive promotions," Mukherjee added.