Progression and growth in the printer market may be further developed by the changes in the work force and technology advancements.
Readitquik.com reported that though much is talked about the paperless office it is still far from reality and that IDC have found that businesses still “depend on printing and document solutions” on a daily basis. The article discusses eight findings that it says will change the printing market.
Firstly it was noted that millennials prefer working on digital devices and that older people prefer to take notes on paper and that this diversity between generations needs to be taken into account when defining the printer needs in an office.
Secondly MFPs have taken over from the single printer as they have more features and IDC study showed that MFPs have over taken the single function printer in shipments during 2016 and noted that businesses find MFPs more efficient and cost effective.
Thirdly inkjet is gaining ground and will supersede laser printers because they are cheaper to run and OEMs like HP and Epson are “pushing the technology” over laser printers.
Fourth the article noted that there was a rise in the A3 market and that these devices are expected to bring in $55 billion (€51 billion) a year and the article referred to HP inc and its PageWide inkjet printer and Canon’s imageRUNNER ADVANCE series both A3 printers.
Fifth was the “growth of MPS” which helps businesses to get the best out of their printers as well as print management software that orders replacement cartridges and other consumables and with Gartner predicting that SMBs will “benefit” from MPS the market could grow more. Add to this the sixth reason which is again MPS providers that support IT add-ons and manage “the IT environment”. OEMs have done this by acquiring other companies for example “Konica Minolta acquired All Covered in 2011 to become an overall cloud and security service provider alongside printing”.
Seventh on the list is the matter of security and these services are becoming more important for businesses who need to secure documents and the OEMs are now making printers more secure as well as developing control over who sees a document by using ID swiping and passwords.
Lastly the article noted that “consolidation will happen” due mainly to cost and business value which will force “consolidation in the printing domain” as was seen by HP’s Samsung deal.