Toner News Mobile › Forums › Latest Industry News › *NEWS*HP TAKES A SWIPE @ "REMAN" MARKET !
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AnonymousInactiveHP takes a swipe at the “remans” market, claiming that remanufactured cartridges won’t be worth your ink.
Execs and an analyst attempt to balance the cost issues
Hewlett-Packard
Canada wants users to know that if they cheap out by buying toner and
ink cartridges, they’re getting what they paid for.At a factory tour
here this week, company representatives went to great lengths to
distance original company consumables from remanufactured laserjet
toner cartridges (or “remans”) and “drill-and-fill” recycled inkjet
cartridges, and the notion that they’re commodity products.The print
cartridge is 70 per cent of the imaging system, said HP Canada category
business manager Mike Oreskovic. And while a simple cost-per-page price
analysis shows remans to be cheaper by anywhere from 10 to 40 per cent,
hidden costs – in reliability, quality, performance and productivity –
tilt the balance in favour of original product, he said. He quoted
third-party research by QualityLogic suggesting that four out of five
remanufactured toner cartridges don’t consistently meet print quality
specifications, give out before their time or are just DOA.On the
inkjet side, HP ink chemist Fiona Coyle said while the company’s
printers and cartridges are developed together, the ink comes first.
“It’s taken very seriously,” Coyle said. “It is the thing that
differentiates our product.” Coyle and Oreskovic pointed to
characteristics of each that define the difference between HP product
and third-party refills. In the case of toner, the chemically grown
particles are spherical, leading to consistency in distribution, while
reman toner is crushed and irregular. On the ink side, HP’s are
chemically designed to keep colour from bleeding into blacks for
crisper edges.And HP Canada category manager Anthony Faga ran through
what he called a list of myths about remanufactured supplies – that
remans save money, that their page yields are equal, that they meet
HP’s specs (which are proprietary and unreleased) among them.Though the
inferiority of remans was a theme returned to time and again during the
session, Faga said HP wasn’t teeing up a campaign to go after the
remanufactured product. “There are choices out there,” he said, if
muss, fuss and hassle aren’t critical to users. But Oreskovic noted
that with drill-and-fill franchises growing and aggressively marketing
their services – “We know it’s growing, but we don’t know to what
extent,” he said – there’s market share to be gained for HP, in the
position of competing for share in the supply of its own
consumables.The cartridge market for 2006 is almost $1.5 billion in
Canada, according to analyst firm Partner Research Corp., with about 28
million ink cartridges and almost a million toner cartridges projected
to ship. HP dominates the market, said PRC’s Michelle Warren.A couple
other remanufactured thorns in the side of HP as a printer company.
Claims of the environmental benefits of buying recycled toner
cartridges are overstated, according to Faga. Many toner cartridges
they acquire can’t be reused because complex parts are worn out and
they end up in landfills anyway, and a toner cartridge recycled under
HP’s Planet Partners program has no more environmental impact.As well,
customers often attribute toner problems to the printer –- and HP
itself – instead of the cartridge, Faga says.Warren agreed that the TCO
might play in HP’s favour, but tempered her comments with an “it
depends.” For example, is it a laser or an inkjet cartridge?
(QualityLogic suggests that original inkjets are 35 times more reliable
than refills, while toner cartridges are nine times more reliable.) But
there’s also the issue of printer damage from rebuilt cartridges, which
tend to negate the printer’s warranty. “Welcome, increased costs,”
Warren said.Often, Faga said, to match page yields of original
equipment, rebuilt toner cartridges are overfilled, with the
accompanying risk of damage to the printer.“Rebuilt cartridges are like
a trick play in football,” said Greg Michetti, president of Michetti
Information Services in Edmonton. “There are too many things that can
go wrong.” -
AuthorNovember 7, 2006 at 11:35 AM
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