Reports from IDC and Gartner show that laser and inkjet printer sales grew in the final quarter of 2012.
Times of India reported on IDC’s latest analysis of the Indian laser printer market, which it stated had grown 13.7 percent in the final quarter of 2012. The market also saw a two percent year-on-year growth in 2012, with 3.2 million units shipped, and the growth was said to be “primarily driven” by laser MFPs, which grew 35.3 percent.
Interestingly, IDC’s results on inkjet saw a decline of 4.5 percent across 2012, where as Gartner’s figures for the fourth quarter, mentioned in the Indian Economic Times showed a 27 percent growth in that quarter alone.
IDC’s Senior Market Analyst Mohit Raizada said that the inkjet results it had seen for the whole year were a sign that inkjet “was not able to sustain the interest levels with the end users”, adding that “peripheral products such as printers remain a secondary product for Indian consumers”. Raizada added that a “clear shift towards laser MFPs was witnessed”, with laser now accounting for 24.6 percent of the overall hard-copy market there.
IDC’s results also saw HP dominating the overall printer market with a 47.7 percent share, with Canon regaining second with 18.9 percent and Epson third with 11.2 percent. Nitin Kumar Singh, another Senior Market Analyst, noted that this was due to Canon’s “aggressive marketing and promotional schemes in inkjet”, with HP and Canon first and second in the laser market with 47.9 percent and 21.8 percent of the market each.
Gartner’s figures meanwhile saw $219.8 million (€169 million) spent on inkjet printing, copier and MFP products, with the combined market totalling 676,263 units sold between October and December 2012, a 5.4 percent increase from 2011. Gartner noted, like IDC, that HP “remained the market leader in the Indian printer, copier and MFP market” with 54 percent market share, whilst Canon was in second with 21 percent, followed by Samsung with eight percent and Epson with six percent.
Gartner Research Analyst Amrita Choudhury added: “In the fourth quarter of 2012, vendors focused on strengthening their channel partners and engaged them in more channel programs initiatives, and most vendors worked closely with the education and public sector units to win deals in both products and services.”