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PRINT.IT
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PRINTERS
Setting the scene
Before interviewing Dr. KiHo Kim,
PrintIT
asked Paul Birkett about
Samsung’s recent performance.
He said: “Our market share
is increasing quickly. We are in
double-digit growth in Europe, and
all of that revenue growth is coming
from our higher end products – our
A3 products and our higher end A4
products. It’s compensating for the
planned decline in our consumer
business, because nowadays
people buy a printer and never
replace the cartridge, so profitability
in that market is questionable.
“We aim to offset the planned
decline in that market with growth
in our B2B platforms. We’ve had
a huge swing in profit as we move
from consumer to higher end B2B
products. We are still establishing
ourselves there and have had a
4,000+% increase in profit so far
this year.
“Samsung entered the printer
market 20 years ago. It is now
Number 2 worldwide in terms of units
shipped, but these are consumer
products. They are small A4 personal
printers. We really only entered the
business-to-business (B2B) market
with our A3 portfolio four years ago.
Since then, we have revised those
products three times – that’s the
pace of innovation at Samsung. By
2020 we have an aspiration to be
Number One in printers overall, and
that requires a lot of work on our
B2B portfolio in order to catch the
more traditional players.
“To achieve this, we have to
recruit more dealers. We are
under-distributed at the moment,
so having the ability to attract more
dealers is really important to us.
We are going to be investing heavily
in our partners over the coming
years. We are not just going after
the traditional print and copier
dealer partners. We believe there’s
a whole market in the IT reseller
channel which is under-served
at the moment by printing. They
provide printers, but they don’t
really do anything else with them.
We think there’s an opportunity
with some of the things we’ve
been talking about (our solutions
platform and apps) to link into the
core business they operate.
“In the UK we have thousands
of registered dealers, but we have
a small number – significantly less
than 100 – that transact a majority
of the business. That’s where our
focus has to be – how do we enable
those thousands to start selling
print? If we can do that, that’s
where we’ll get the step change in
our market share and growth.”
The view from the top
Next,
PrintIT
spoke to Dr. KiHo
Kim, Executive Vice President of
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd and
Head of the Printing Solutions
Business.
PrintIT
:
Is there still a good market
in print?
Dr. KiHo Kim
:
Maybe not (laughs).
I think we should admit that. In
the A3 copier market demand
is steady. In the A4 printer
market demand has increased
in developing countries, but in
developed countries the market is
shrinking. For two reasons: one, the
market for our A4 Segment 1 and
2 devices has moved from SMBs
to home users, and they don’t
print; and the second reason is the
smartphone. People just consume
information on-screen; they don’t
print it that much.
For these reasons, the printing
boiler room of Segment 1 and
2 entry-level A4 devices keeps
decreasing. That’s the biggest
problem. HP, as you know, created
a printer business model where the
machine is not so expensive. They
don’t make money out of printer
sales and compensate for this with
toner sales. I recently investigated
what was happening in Segments
1 and 2 and found that more than
20% of users have a monthly print
volume (MPV) of less than 40
pages. The initial toner is enough
for their whole period of ownership.
For four years, they don’t have to
buy another cartridge. Vendors like
us can’t make money by selling
Segment 1 and 2 printers today.
And the worst thing is non-genuine
toner cartridge vendors, mainly from
China. They are killing us – they are
killing Samsung, killing HP, killing
Brother and so on. So the market
perspective in the A4 entry business
is terrible. I have many friends in HP,
Brother and other vendors are they
have all given up in Segment 1. That
is what is happening.
So everyone is working on the
A4 mid to high-end segment and
A3 business and they are trying to
expand their business into services
and solutions. This business is not
all about paper; it is about the office.
We call the A3 copier business office
automation; it is all about office and
documents. The printing industry
should cover a bigger area than just
printing, including workflow solutions
and services and maybe document
display.
PrintIT
:
Apart from smartphones
are there any other areas of
Samsung’s business that are
influencing printer development?
Dr. KiHo Kim
:
Our strategy is,
instead of providing closed printers
and copiers, to provide an open
platform for printing, for copying,
for scanning, for documents.
As I mentioned, the paradigm is
changing from a paper-based, paper
processing business to a document
business. People are consuming
documents, not only on paper, but
also on-screen; and not only in the
office, but also on the move. The
industry should follow that new
paradigm. That’s why we provide a
so-called open platform so that they
can connect with mobile devices.
The smartphone device is the
At June’s Samsung European Partner Summit, weeks before HP announced
its intention to buy Samsung’s print business, James Goulding spoke to
Dr. KiHo Kim, Executive Vice President of Samsung Electronics and Head of the
Printing Solutions Business, about Samsung’s evolving print strategy, and to
Paul Birkett, Sales and Marketing Director for the Samsung European Printing
Business, who offered a UK perspective. The points they make about the
strengths of the Samsung A3 platform make interesting reading in light of
HP’s interest in the technology and remain pertinent to existing and future
users of Samsung devices whatever flag they fly under.
Chasing growth
Samsung
entered
the printer
market 20
years ago.
It is now
Number 2
worldwide
in terms of
units shipped,
but these are
consumer
products
