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PRINT.IT
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Photizo is predicting a decline
in hardware sales revenue
of 2% CAGR from 2011-
2016, with only colour laser
printers and colour laser MFPs
showing growth of 2% and 4%
CAGR respectively. Over the
same period supplies revenue
in EMEA is expected to be
flat, with any increase in toner
sales offset by a decline in
inkjet sales.
Business inkjets have shown
some growth but they have
failed to live up to people’s
expectations. Photizo expects
business inkjets to account
for just 5% of the total imaging
market (in units) by 2016.
As regards managed print
services (MPS), Photizo believes
that the enterprise market is now
saturated following significant
activity in 2009 and 2010.
As a result, OEMs are looking
to the SMB sector for growth
and have introduced channel-
specific MPS programmes to
reach mid-size and
smaller businesses.
Between 2008 and
2010, revenues
from SME MPS rose
from under $10
billion to under $15
billion.
These trends are
taking place against
major changes in
the industry. HP has
had a particularly
bumpy ride. Priede
pointed out that
it used to be a
good company because it was
diversified, but notes that all
these areas – PCs, printers
and services – were hit hard in
2012. Sharp, too, is suffering. Its
document business is profitable,
but has an uncertain future due
to the wider Group’s problems.
Lexmark and Kodak have pulled
out of inkjets.
As the market leader, you
would expect HP to put a
positive spin on the print
market and at the November
launch of its new printers
(see pages 16 and 18), Fulvio
Ferrari didn’t disappoint.
In FY 2012, revenue from HP’s
printing business fell by 6.5%
compared to zero growth in
FY2011 and circa 7% growth in
FY2010. Revenue from supplies
was down by 5.8%, commercial
hardware was down by 4.7% and
consumer hardware down by
14%. These results make ugly
reading but are in line with those
of other printer vendors.
So what do they tell us about
the state of business printing
today? There are plenty who
would say that they indicate an
industry in terminal decline.
However, Fulvio Ferrari, VP and
General Manager of HP’s Inkjet
and Web Solutions Business in
EMEA, told delegates at HP’s Fall
Printing Event that this was a
distorted picture.
He said that to understand
what was happening it was
necessary to distinguish between
‘printers’ and ‘printing’, pointing
out that falling unit sales was
not a judgment on printing per
se, but simply a reflection of
changes in the way people are
using print hardware.
These include the
replacement of personal printers
with network devices used by
multiple users, which results
in fewer devices but a higher
print volume per device; longer
replacement cycles – up from
3 years to four or five years in
the business world and from 2
years to 3 years in the consumer
market; and richer content that
is causing the amount of toner or
ink on the page to increase.
“All this means there is a
disconnect between printers
2102: A bad year for printing
Another significant trend
is a decline in page volumes.
Photizo and PrintFleet have
been monitoring print usage in
the same 257 companies since
Q1 2008. Their figures show a
relatively steady decline of 20%
over the period which suggests
that MPS is having an effect.
Photizo Group’s
2011 Small and
Medium-Size Business Printer
User Survey
reveals a 5.5%
decline in monthly print volumes
between 2010 and 2011.
The hope that mobile printing
would drive an increase in
printing is misplaced, according
to studies by Photizo. It surveyed
467 people and found that just
50 have printed from a mobile
device. Of those, 30% printed
only once or twice to test the
capability and only 22% (i.e. 11
people out of 470) print at least
once a month.
Priede said: “As an
industry we haven’t made it
easy for people to print from
smartphones. The
challenge is that
once you learn to
live without printing
you won’t go back
to it. How do you
re-educate people
and say now you
can print from your
smartphone?”
She added: “There
is no question that
page volumes are
declining so the key is
to find new business
models. We have
tablets and smartphones but the
workforce is getting younger and
they have been digital all their
lives and don’t have a culture of
printing. What will happen in the
office? Will they bring that culture
into the office or get caught
up in paper workflows and get
printing?”
At Photizo Group’s Transform 2012 MPS
conference held at Twickenham Stadium in
October, Photizo sales consultant Scott Hornbuckle
and Ann Priede, vice president of services and
publications, highlighted key trends in the EMEA
Imaging Market based on data from Photizo
Group’s Hardware and Supplies Advisory Services.
Printer Market
and printing. You might have
a situation where the printer
market is flat or declining, but
printing is actually increasing,”
he said.
This argument sounds
plausible, but it goes against
the facts, which show that print
volumes in Western Europe have
fallen for the last two years, with
HP’s consumables revenue down
by 5.8% in 2012, following flat
sales in 2011 and a rise of 4.3%
in 2010.
Ferrari has an explanation
for this, too, and cited a number
of macro-economic factors
to support his thesis, notably
the economy. He pointed
out that there is a direct
correlation between printing
and employment and that when
employment goes up, printing
increases and when it declines
so do print volumes. Europe’s
economic woes and double-dip
recession would explain why
printing declined in 2012.
Demographics is another
key factor. Ferrari argues that a
youthful, expanding population
is good for new business
generation and therefore
printing. This is why print
volumes are increasing in the
Middle East and Africa, where
the young outnumber the old,
but declining in Western Europe,
where you will find nine of the
Top 10 countries on the global
ageing index – the other is
Japan.
On the broader subject of
how digitisation is affecting
print volumes he was less
forthcoming. Are declining print
volumes in mature economies
purely the result of the economic
situation and an ageing
population or are they, as many
would suggest, the result of
changing working habits driven
by greater adoption of electronic
processes?
…Or was it?