HP SEES 2008 PRINTER UNIT SALES UP 4% TO 6 %

[Anonymous]

http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSL3088628320080530
HP sees 2008 printer unit sales up 4-6 percent
May
, 2008 DUESSELDORF, Germany – Hewlett-Packard the world’s biggest maker
of PCs and printers, sees sales growth at its imaging and printing unit
stable or slightly lower this year as it focuses on its digital
graphics business.Vyometh Joshi, executive vice president in charge of
the unit, told Reuters on Friday he also aimed for an operating margin
of 13-15 percent this year and next, compared with 15 percent last
fiscal year to end-October.”We would like to grow our business 4 to 6
percent in revenues and make 13 to 15 percent operating profit,” Joshi
said in an interview at the Drupa print media trade fair in
Duesseldorf, Germany.

Sales at HP’s imaging and printing unit grew 6 percent last fiscal year.
Asked
whether the targets were for the current fiscal year, Joshi answered:
“Yes, for next year also.”HP’s imaging and printing unit made sales of
$28.5 billion last year — about a quarter of the company’s total
revenues — but almost half of HP’s operating profit.The unit is helped
by a lucrative business in printer cartridges which customers must keep
buying to keep their HP printers running.Joshi said, however, he saw
the future in digital graphics, which had now caught up to an
acceptable extent with analogue printing methods in cost and quality,
if not yet in speed.In its favor, digital printing is far more
flexible, and so more cost-efficient for smaller print runs, Joshi
said. For example, changing details for a printed label could take
months using analogue, compared with days for digital.Although HP has
46 percent global market share in printers, Joshi said, it accounted
for just 1.6 percent of the 50 trillion pages printed worldwide last
year, a $781 billion market, because more than 90 percent still used
analogue methods.”Instead of focusing just on the printers, we are
focusing now on the pages. That’s how we can continue to grow,” he said.

HP
estimates the value of pages printed in the global graphic arts market
will be $663 billion by 2010.After the digitalization of music and
photos, which are already well advanced, labels, marketing materials
and books will follow in the next few years, Joshi predicted.He
referred to Google’s ambitious project to scan all the world’s books
that are out of copyright, which has already gathered digital versions
of more than a million books.”If you want to get a book that’s out of
print, digital is the way to do it, because you only print one copy,”
he said.

HP has made several acquisitions in the graphic arts
field in the last few years, including most recently that of Israel’s
NUR Macroprinters in March for $118 million.Joshi spoke to Reuters as
HP showed a new digital printing press for the first time at the Drupa
fair, which is due to come to market in the second half of next
year.The Inkjet Web Press is aimed mainly at medium-sized to large
providers of print services and could revolutionize the way that local
newspapers, for example, are printed, he said.Instead of relying on the
huge printing presses owned by media groups such as News Corp. , local
papers could own their own production or go to smaller, closer-by
providers.Product manager Mike Neuffer said the target price for the
Inkjet Web Press was around $2.5 million to $3 million, although no
prices had yet been set.The press can print at rates of up to 122
meters per minute, HP says. Joshi said this was about half the speed
analogue alternatives can produce.Neuffer said such printing presses
could also be useful for national or international newspapers for
regional print and distribution purposes.

[Author]

May 30, 2008 at 2:36 PM