Minoru Usui, President of Seiko Epson
Ink Tank technology contributes to OEM’s recent strong performance in the Indian inkjet printer market.
CRN reported on an interview with Minoru Usui, President of Seiko Epson, who discussed the company’s growth in India’s printer market over the past few years, claiming that it has “beaten HP to become market leader”.
In the past two to three years, Epson’s Indian operations have grown between 18 and 20 percent CAGR, according to Usui, with a revenue of Rs 880 crore ($143.3 million/€114.6 million) in the 2013-2014 financial year compared to Rs 703 crore ($114.5 million/€91.6 million) in the previous year. For the current fiscal, Usui said “we are on track to exceed Rs 1,000 crore ($163 million/€130.3 million), and over the next two fiscals we have a target to cross Rs 1,400 crore ($228.2 million/€182.5 million)”.
The recent strong performance has been attributed to the OEM’s “revolutionary” Ink Tank technology printers, which has “drastically reduced the cost per page” to 12 paise ($0.002/€0.002) per page for mono and 25 paise ($0.004/€0.003) per page for colour. Usui said: “Due to the growing popularity of Ink Tank, we have gained leadership in the inkjet market, beating HP with a value market share of 44 percent versus HP’s 39 percent,” compared to a market share of just 26 percent in the 2011-2012 financial year. He added that the technology has also allowed the company to increase “market share in the inkjet segment globally”.
Explaining the success of Epson’s Ink Tank printers, Usui said that they “have been hugely popular in the small business segment”, with the SMB segment accounting for “nearly 70 percent of the Ink Tank printers sold”, with the rest split evenly between the home consumer and mid-market and large enterprises segments.
He added: “We believe there is a huge opportunity which we can tap in the mid-market and large enterprise segments—including PSUs and the government sector—and our initiatives are aimed at achieving these targets. We have set a challenging target of replacing three lakh (300,000) laser printers within these customer segments over the next two years.”
However, Usui noted that “this target is challenging” as “it requires a change in mind-set among these customers who for years have been using laser printers and have a large fleet across their branches. These customers are still unaware that Epson Ink Tank printers offer the same features as lasers but at a much lower TCO(total cost of ownership)”.
To tackle this, Epson has in the past eight months conducted road shows in 43 cities to try to change customers’ opinions on inkjet printing, as well as providing “more than 500 demo units” to customers, “many” of which “have become convinced about our TCO and have bought our products”, according to Usui.
A further challenge is presented by the current tendering system of these customers, which “is centred around the lowest bid rather than the lowest TCO of printing”. As a result, Epson has spent the past six to eight months “working with government buying agencies to educate them about the TCO concept in the tendering system”, with Usui stating that the company is “hopeful that things will change. Once that happens we will be able to participate in large tenders which will significantly boost out market leadership”.