The study found that many users “currently are not” using their mobile devices to print, with plenty of work to be done to encourage more mobile printing.
The study, Mobile Devices and the Impact on Print, is said by the analyst to “uncover the relative opportunity to print across a broad range of mobile device users”, with the goal to “understand what people need to satisfy their desire to print from their mobile devices”, looking at “attributes” including the “needs, behaviours, and desires of business users versus personal users who wish to print”.
According to InfoTrends, the evidence gathered in the study found that many users of smartphones and tablets “wish to print” from their devices, but “many currently are not”, and the analysts expect that “different groups of users face different and multiple barriers to printing”. It added that vendors are “currently unclear” on which user groups “represent the largest untapped potential for print”, as well what these users “need most to enable them to print”.
Respondents to the study were asked “what they expect to encounter as barriers to printing”, with personal and work-related printing enquired about, and the results showed that “across all countries”, and “regardless if it was for work or personal” use, the biggest barrier expected by users was “technical connectivity problems to the printer”, while other “non-cost” issues included application errors or “knowing where to find a printer”.
InfoTrends stated that people who “wish to print for personal reasons and work reasons” actually have “very similar needs and barriers”, and added that “therefore, actions taken by vendors to satisfy those needs and eliminate those barriers will benefit both types of users”. It concluded that the study is “designed to help vendors with an interest in stimulating the market with the ability to print from mobile devices”, as well as “address the needs of users that want and need to print from multiple locations, or while they are on the go, and what problems they face.
“This report seeks to help vendors address these concerns, so that the users of their devices will be able to print as often as they want”. InfoTrends’ Andrew Carroll spoke about the study in his seminar at the REMCON conference at Remanexpo@Paperworld 2015, and you can read more about the presentation in our report from the show in issue 269.