The global market for printers grew for the third quarter in a row, with 26.4 million units shipped in the first quarter of the financial year.
IDC reported on the latest worldwide hardcopy peripherals market results, with the sector “maintain[ing] its growth trajectory” with 2.1 percent year-on-year growth in units shipped. 26.4 million units were shipped in the first quarter of 2014 alone, with the two biggest regions – Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) and Western Europe – seeing yearly growth of 5.5 percent and 7.1 percent respectively.
The Asia/Pacific market saw 7.7 million total units shipped, whilst Western Europe saw 5.4 million units shipped. Inkjet printers lost share to laser, but registered 58.4 percent of overall shipments in 1Q2014, a fall of three percent from 4Q2013, whilst laser grew four percent to 38 percent share. The Middle East and Africa, along with the Asia/Pacific, saw laser shipment growth in particular of 16.6 percent and 11.2 percent respectively.
Looking at laser in more detail, monochrome laser holds 80.1 percent of the market, with eight million units shipped for a growth of 2.6 percent, whilst colour laser grew 8.9 percent with two million units shipped, which gave it a 19.9 percent share of the laser market. IDC noted that this “marks the fourth consecutive quarter where the colour laser segment showed positive year-over-year growth”, which gave the entire laser market a 3.8 percent increase.
OEM results from the Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker also saw three of the top five OEMs – HP, Epson and Brother – record yearly growth as well, with HP said to have “benefited from the Ink Advantage programme”, and Epson from its expansion of its MFP ranges and its Expression series of machines. HP holds 40.3 percent market share after growing 6.5 percent, the “second highest” growth, with growth in five of the eight global regions.
Canon remained second with 18.5 percent market share and 4.9 million units shipped, but saw a decline of 7.2 percent in shipments “due to less than stellar results” in six of the eight regions, with IDC noting the decline was not helped by the “retirement of many older models […] while new or replacement models were few”.
Epson, in third place, holds 14.3 percent market share with 3.8 million units shipped, with positive performances in the Asia/Pacific, Western Europe and the USA. In fourth place, Brother had shipped two million units for 1.5 percent quarterly growth, and a huge 42 percent growth in Japan “due to its winning of a few big deals”. Samsung placed fifth with 1.6 million units shipped despite a decline of 7.3 percent in the quarter for a market share of six percent, down from 6.5 last year.
Finally, Ricoh joined the top five OEMs in laser printers “for the first time ever”, with IDC noting it had achieved “outstanding results” in both the EMEA and the Asia/Pacific with growth of 9.8 percent, due largely to its “recent ramp up in colour MFPs”.
Phuong Hang, Programme Director for IDC’s Worldwide Hardcopy Peripheral Trackers, stated: “Aligning with IDC’s prediction that 2014 would be a year of growth and sales execution is the fact that ongoing vertical opportunities will be an important target for the hardcopy peripherals vendors.
“To effectively execute sales in these opportunities, sales reps will need to be deeply educated on that vertical. Common vertical targets are already in place and typically include the traditionally document-intensive healthcare, financial, public sector, and legal markets. One vertical that we expect to hear more about in 2014 is manufacturing.”
The Recycler previously reported on the global market’s growth in the final quarter of the 2013 financial year, back in February.