Market research firm conducts study finding business inkjet is to increase in popularity over the coming years.
Despite the common belief in the imaging industry that laser devices are most appropriate for workgroup office use while inkjet devices are better suited to the home and small office environment, InfoTrends believes that this view is changing and that inkjets will soon make up over half of all devices used in business, with recent years showing that business inkjet printers and MFPs have surpassed laser devices in the US as the leading technology based on unit shipment volume.
As a result, InfoTrends conducted a study, titled “Is Inkjet Printing Ready to Transform the U.S Office Printing Environment?”, which identifies important customer insight and recommends sales and marketing strategies for business inkjet providers, as well as quantifying the placement opportunity for business inkjet technology in the US office environment.
Based on this study and on the growing popularity of business inkjet devices, InfoTrends estimates that by 2016, 56 percent of all printing devices used in business will be business inkjet devices, compared to 44 percent for laser devices; and that there is an opportunity for inkjet technology to play a greater role in office printing.
As part of the study, survey respondents were asked why they chose an inkjet device over a laser device, with 77 percent stating that they do so for “some form of cost/price/running cost reason”, showing that the price of a printer is viewed as more a more important factor than the performance of a product, such as speed, reliability and output quality. Colour quality was also listed as a key factor in choosing inkjet over laser.
Also explored in the study were decision maker attitudes towards ink-based marking technology in the US; recommended sales and marketing strategies to influence perception and encourage a shift in purchase behaviour; the product features, attributes and functionality considered most important by mainstream SMB and enterprise workgroup printing customers across the US and the size and forecast of the market opportunity for inkjet technology in the US office printing market.