Market sees 13 percent contraction in ink and toner consumables volume as compatibles dominate.
Research conducted by IDC found that the overall Ukrainian market for hardcopy peripherals (HCP) consumables, including both ink and toner cartridges, contracted by 13 percent year-on-year in 2013 in terms of volume, with around 21.7 million units shipped; while the market’s value declined by almost 17 percent to $107.1 million (€77.1 million) during the same period.
Noting that the country has been experiencing a “difficult economic situation” that has lead to diminished business activity and consumer purchasing, IDC stated that “it is not surprising that non-originals/compatibles completely dominate the consumables market”; with OEM consumables found to represent just 4.7 percent of the ink cartridge market in terms of volume and 9.6 percent of the country’s toner shipments.
However, the research also indicated that penetration of compatible cartridges is “extremely small”, with IDC noting that “in the ink market, bulk ink used for continuous ink supply system (CISS) and cartridges refilling by end users accounts for the majority of non-original shipments”. With toner consumables, refilling accounts for 78.5 percent of market volume.
Interestingly IDC found that the Ukrainian market, unlike many other CEE countries with similar contraction rates of OEM consumables, is not significantly affected by clones.
Looking ahead, IDC predicts that the Ukrainian consumables market will continue to decline over the next few years as a result of the difficult political and economic situation the country is experiencing. Furthermore, HCP shipments have contracted over the last three years, with this trend expected to continue throughout this year, further decreasing the demand for consumables.
Alexey Gvozdenko, Program Manager at IDC Ukraine, commented: “Local price sensitivity is not the only reason for large-scale use of refilled cartridges and CISS. Such consumables provide satisfactory results for most users, so they don’t see any sense in paying several times more for originals. Moreover, the low cost per print provided by refilling motivates them to print more.”