Press Release: Photo Printing: Is It Changing the Printer Industry? And
Who Leads the “Pack” - HP, Epson, Canon, Lexmark or Another Entirely
Different Brand?
The face of printing has dramatically changed over
the last two to three years yet never so much as in the last 12 to 18 months.
The barrage of new photo printers as well as the onslaught of less-expensive yet
high quality digital cameras in the marketplace has made their mark in the
printing world. The average consumer now looks to print their own photos from
home which has had a positive bottom-line effect for the manufacturers of ink
cartridges and papers.
However, the additional revenues will be even
stronger in the coming months with dramatic increases during the holiday months
due to the extremely high number of photographs taken and shared during the
holiday season. The consumption rate of ink cartridges is much higher
particularly in the last year due to heightened use of the home printer. The
greatest increase in printing is photographs as well as graphics such as
invitations, flyers and the like. The printing of photos and graphics uses
nearly three times the amount of ink over the printing of strictly black-ink
papers.
PrintCountry.com Office Supplies announces the breakdown
of its printer ink cartridge sales figures for 2004 with the most popular
printer brands being HP, Epson, Canon and Lexmark. Following suit with the past
three years, HP, Epson, Canon and Lexmark are once again the top four companies
with the highest figures for supplies orders.
HP’s last 2004
quarterly revenue for its imaging and printing division is $6.1 million. Epson
follows HP in 2nd place in the printer market again for 2004. Companies in the
printer business such as HP, Epson, Canon and Lexmark make the majority of their
revenues from printer supplies, printer ink and toner
cartridges.
Although HP manufactures more printers and has a higher
market share in the US, PrintCountry.com has been selling its competitor
Epson’s supplies twice as often as HP and rival Canon over the past three
years. HP only represents 19.6% of the PrintCountry.com inkjet supplies orders
in 2004, a decrease of 22.1% from 2003. While Epson’s order percentage
goes as high as 33.9%, which is almost the same as last year’s 34% share.,
Other big rival Canon’s orders remain at 14.6%, followed by Lexmark with
12.8%.
PrintCountry.com believes the main reason Epson is selling
more printer ink supplies than HP is directly related to the printing of photos
by the consumer. Epson is quite dominant in the digital photography printing
arena. The most recent InfoTrends/CAP Ventures’ survey, which studied 220
respondents in North America, provides some interesting figures. All of the
participants in the survey had digital photo, proof and/or art printing
equipment. Survey results show that 85.6% of respondents reported they would
most likely purchase an Epson printer, while no other vendor reached even 7%.
What will happen in 2005?
According to Jennifer Douglas,
Director of Operations at PrintCountry.com, the year as a whole and especially
the coming months will see HP continuing to be the #1 printer manufacturer. HP
will continue to realize greater gains as a corporation while selling more
products bundled together such as computers, servers, cameras, etc. Epson will
gain additional market share. Epson printers are becoming more and more popular
among photo printer users who consume large quantities of printing supplies
These consumers will consequently have a strong effect on Epson’s (high)
number of printer supplies sales. Canon will be ranked 3rd again but will get
closer to Epson. Canon’s market share will also increase as they
manufacture photo printers along with high quality digital cameras. On the other
hand, Dell will be changing these numbers dramatically in 2005 by gaining more
and more market share in the printing industry.
About
PrintCountry.com
PrintCountry.com Office Supplies is an industry leader in
printer ink cartridges (since 2001), selling high quality ink & toner
cartridges and other office supplies for all major brands including HP, Epson,
Canon, Lexmark, Brother, Xerox and many others. In addition to the original
manufacturer's cartridges (OEMs), PrintCountry.com offers a wide selection of
remanufactured cartridges, compatible ink cartridges, and ink refill kits all of
which are of equal quality as the OEMs yet they are substantially lower in
price. All supplies are manufactured by ISO 9001 certified manufacturers and are
held to rigorous quality assurance standards.
Posted: Thu - June 30, 2005 at 09:29 AM