COLOR MFP's CONTINUE TO DO WELL DESPITE DOWN ECONOMY

[Anonymous]

http://www.echannelline.com/usa/story.cfm?item=24610
Color MFP continues to do well despite down economy
The
brightest spot in the overall worldwide hardcopy peripherals (HCP)
market during the first quarter of 2009 (1Q09) was color laser
multifunction peripherals (MFPs). It registered a strong showing of 6%
year-over-year growth in a challenging economic environment. According
to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker, the overall
MFP market has fared much better than the single function printer
market, as products continue to make the transition towards
multifunction.

Total worldwide hardcopy unit shipments declined
18% year over year to 26.4 million units, while shipment value fell 21%
to $12.8 billion in 1Q09, the third consecutive quarterly decline. “IDC
continues to expect a recovery for the HCP market in early 2010,” said
Phuong Hang, program manager, Worldwide Hardcopy Peripheral Trackers.
“IDC expects that vendors will employ several strategies to weather the
current economic downturn. The battle will continue in the channel to
gain go-to-market strength and capacity. Vendors will also focus on
offering cost cutting and/or productivity enhancements to customer’s
existing document infrastructure as well as driving managed print
services.”

The MFP market remains the dominant product type in
the overall hardcopy peripherals market with a 62% share and 16.3
million units shipped in 1Q09. MFPs were the least impacted of the
product types with -10% year-over-year growth. The single-function
printer market was hard hit again with a -28% growth rate resulting in
shipments of 9.9 million units as the market continues to move towards
MFP devices. The color laser MFP market was the only segment with
year-over-year growth (6%), resulting in a 1Q09 market size of 632,000
units.

The inkjet market was down again, declining by 15% year
over year to 17.8 million units. The decline was less severe than the
previous quarter’s -18% growth, when products tied to holiday buying
were hit the hardest as consumers pulled back their spending.The
monochrome laser market grew -23% year over year to 6.4 million units.
This was more severe than the previous quarter’s -17% year-over-year
growth.The color laser segment declined 15% year over year to 1.4
million units. This was weaker than the 1% growth in 4Q08.

Despite
-24% growth year over year, HP remains the leading vendor in the total
hardcopy peripherals market with 41% share, down from 44% in 1Q08. The
majority (60%) of HP’s shipments are MFPs, which showed a less severe
decline (-14% year over year) and resulted in a drop in market share of
2 points to 39% in that segment. The brightest spot, as expected for
HP, was the color laser MFP segment, where HP grew unit shipments 35%
year over year and gained three points in market share. Another segment
that did well for HP compared to other market segments was the color
inkjet MFP segment. Here, HP’s shipments declined only 14% year over
year and HP lost 2 points in market share. HP’s technology mix has
increased in favor of inkjet year over year to 73%, an increase of 4
points. Inkjet MFP shipments have also increased just under a half of a
point in favor of color laser MFP technology.

Canon did quite
well compared to its competitors in 1Q09, and remained the number two
vendor in the hardcopy peripherals market. Canon’s unit shipments
declined only 6% year over year, resulting in an increased market share
of 17%, up 2 points from 1Q08. Canon’s 4.6 million units are split 61%
in favor of MFPs. Canon’s MFP shipments faired the best, as with other
vendors, and Canon gained two points in market share in 1Q09. Canon’s
technology mix has increased in favor of inkjet by 2 points to 83%
inkjet, 15% monochrome laser, and 2% color laser, when compared to
1Q08. Within this mix, however, things have changed slightly in favor
of MFPs. It is most apparent in the inkjet segment.

Epson’s
decline was slower in 1Q09 than 4Q08, -13% vs. -14% growth,
respectively. Rounding out the top 3 spot, Epson’s overall performance
was much better than the top player, trending at -13% year over year.
Epson’s share accounts for 14.8% (3.9 million units) of the total
hardcopy peripherals market, a 0.7% increase from a year ago. On a
worldwide basis, MFPs showed a slower decline than single-function
printers, -7% and -25%, respectively. Within Epson’s technology mix,
its laser share remained at 2% while its inkjet share increased 4
points to 89% from 1Q08. Compared with other vendors, Epson did quite
well in the inkjet segment, gaining a point to 20% share (2.7 million
units) in the worldwide inkjet MFP market, and maintaining an 18% slice
in the printer segment.

Brother’s 1Q09 performance was very
good. The number four player outperformed all others in the top five.
Brother is the only vendor with positive year-over-year growth (+3%)
and accounts for 7.1% (1.9 million units) of the total hardcopy
peripherals market, an increase from 5.6% in 1Q08. Within Brother’s
technology mix, inkjet remains the dominant technology with 1.1 million
units shipped in 1Q09 equating to 60% of Brother’s total shipments.
Laser MFPs performed well in Latin America (+60%), Middle East and
Africa (MEA) (+38%) and Western Europe (+22%). The biggest defeat for
Brother’s laser MFPs was in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) with
year-over-year growth trending at -58%.

Lexmark’s total share
fell 1 point to 5% (1.3 million units) in 1Q09 while remaining the top
5 player in both printers and MFPs. In contrast to the 4Q08 trend where
its printers came out on top, Lexmark’s MFPs performed better than
printers in 1Q09, -23% vs. -37% year-over-year growth, respectively.
Its MFPs experienced the most growth in MEA (+23%) and Western Europe
(+3%) and had the largest declines in Japan (-100%) and Latin America
(-64%). Printer shipments faired best in Japan (+301%) and MEA (-11%)
and worst in CEE (-66%) and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) (-48%).
Although laser MFPs continued to expand, its positive growth had slowed
down from 20% in 4Q08 to 12% on a worldwide basis

[Author]

June 9, 2009 at 10:35 AM