[Anonymous]

http://www.mb.com.ph/issues/2008/11/09/INFO20081109140328.html
Nearly half of ink cartridges used in AP are not originals
Original
printer ink cartridge vendors will need to be vigilant against
counterfeits products, which are often mixed with originals or gray
products, a study by IDC warned.
The
IDC Asia/Pacific Quarterly Printer Consumables Tracker which covered
Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, People’s Republic
of China (PRC), South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan, indicated
that the recent turmoil in the financial markets will inevitably impact
on the printer consumables market.”Particularly for countries such as
India and the PRC where users are more price sensitive, this may
provide opportunities to the non-original products,” it said. “Printing
activities in the home space will likely to be reduced, putting more
pressure especially for the ink cartridge market. It is hence important
for original vendors to find ways to counter the raising costs and
provide better value preposition to the end-users such as introducing
better efficient cartridges with lower cost per page.”

The
loyalty rate for inkjet cartridges averaged about 62% for Asia Pacific
except Japan. Original vendors secured at least two thirds of the ink
cartridge market share in most countries but faced greater challenges
in India, Indonesia, Korea and the PRC. Users in these countries are
more willing to use third party products, especially low cost refill
products/services.Original vendors seek to provide better value
proposition to the end-users such as vibrant print quality, longer
lasting prints, loyalty programs, low/high yield cartridges for
occasional/frequent users etc., to garner users’ loyalty.

On the
other hand, apart from very competitive pricing, third party vendors
have various products offerings such as continuous inking supply
systems or “Do-It-Yourself” refills kits to attract the users.Users
stand to benefit from this tug-of-war between the original and
compatible players as they are presented with more choices, the study
said.

In Singapore, original vendors are enjoying very high
loyalty rates in the toner space. About 4 in every 5 of the toner
cartridge shipped are originals. This is much higher than the overall
toner loyalty rate of 59% for the Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ)
region.Loyalty rates are below 50% in the PRC (46%) and India (39%),
which have a higher composition of cost conscious users compared to the
rest of the region. Original vendors have to be watchful as their
increasing laser installed base will also attract more third party
players, who are also eyeing on a share of the revenue.

GROWTH
IDC’s
Asia/Pacific Quarterly Printer Consumables Tracker showed that the
printer consumables market grew about 5% yearonyear to reach 46 million
units in the second quarter of 2008.Inkjet cartridge remained dominant,
accounting for 80% of the total printer consumables market or close to
37 million units. Strong growth continued in the laser toner market
with 18% growth year-on-year to exceed the 9 million mark this quarter.

In
the second quarter of 2008, the inkjet cartridge market only managed to
ink a 2% growth, which pales in comparison to 8% growth in the same
quarter last year.Growth in most countries were modest at 3 to 4%
except for slightly better compared to the growth in Thailand (10%) and
Philippines (7%). HP, Epson and Canon remained the key stakeholders in
the inkjet cartridge market with a combined unit market share of 90%.

Increasing
adoption of laser Single Function Printers (SFPs) and Multifunction
Peripheral (MFPs) continued to strengthen the demand for toners in the
market with the key vendors showing very strong double-digit
growth.”There was strong growth exceeding 20% in the toner markets of
India, Indonesia, the PRC and Thailand,” said Shirley Teo, Research
Manager of IDC’s Asia/Pacific.

[Author]

November 10, 2008 at 10:13 AM