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The worldwide printer industry continued its recovery in the frst quarter of this year, as year-on-year unit shipments grew by 7.2%, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker. The market is being driven by emerging markets where sales were 13% higher than in the same period last year, compared to an increase of 6% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

As in the last two quarters, the fastest growing category was monochrome laser, which saw sales rise by 22% to almost 8.5 million units out of a total market size of 30 million units. This was the fourth consecutive quarter in which mono laser devices enjoyed greater year-on-year growth than colour devices. This trend was refected in EMEA where mono laser shipments grew by 20% compared to 9% for colour lasers.

Worldwide mono laser printers remain the dominant type of laser in the offce, accounting for 62% of all laser devices.

Overall, laser shipments (colour and B&W) grew 3% to 33% of the total market, with inkjet devices accounting for 63% of sales, 4% lower than in the same period in 2010. HP remains the leading vendor in the global HCP market,

with 42.4% market share, some way ahead of Canon which remains in second place with 17.3% market share. Both the top two companies extended their lead over competitors, recording sales increases for the quarter of 10.5% and 11.3% respectively. Epson retained third place with 14.1% share, despite seeing a decline in shipments in all regions except Latin America and Asia/Pacifc (excluding Japan). Samsung and Brother were in fourth and ffth place with market shares of 6% and 5.8% respectively. In the US market, Kodak increased shipments by 37.5% to record a market share of 5%, putting it in ffth place behind HP, Canon, Epson and Brother. The IDC Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker tracks total market size and vendor share for single-function printers, multifunctional printers (MFPs) and single-function digital copiers (SF DC).

Brother’s successful

introduction of A3 inkjet MFPs (see cover story in last issue) has catapulted it to number one position in the European A3 multifunction market, ahead of A3 MFP specialists such as Ricoh, Canon and Konica Minolta (see table left). Brother’s market share of 16.3% is based on units sales and would be very different if it were based on unit value. With an entry price of £299.99, Brother’s inkjet MFPs cost just a fraction of laser-based alternatives, which is why they have proved so popular with small businesses that otherwise couldn’t afford to produce A3 colour documents in-house. Brother launched its frst A3 inkjet MFP in 2008 and continues to develop the range. In February it launched four new models with faster print speeds, improved print quality and enhanced A3 functionality.

Sales of printers and MFDs in the mature markets of Western Europe and USA grew last year but are still below their peak of 2007, according to two new InfoTrends reports: U.S. Single-Function Printer & MFP Market Placements & Western Europe Single Function Printer and MFP Market Placements. Total US placements of printers and multifunctional devices, including consumer, offce and production units, rose by 5.2% last year from 27.5 million units in 2009 to 28.9 million units in 2010. In Western Europe they grew by 4.1% from 26.3 million units in 2009 to 27.4 million units in 2010.

InfoTrends attributes much of the growth to an increase in placements of inkjet devices which rose by 3.8% in the US and 2.7% in Western Europe. Within this segment, business inkjet sales rose by 13.9% in the US and 4.7% in Western Europe.

Laser printers continued to take market share from inkjet devices in Q1, 2011. Even so, Kodak recorded a 37.5% increase in US sales as consumers responded to its TCO message. Photo shows the recently launched Kodak ESP Offce 2170 wireless home offce printer.

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