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Konica Minolta targets SA market
PRINTER
company Konica Minolta has appointed two new distributors to help it to
increase its sales as demand for colour printers begins to take
off.Workgroup and TVR Computers are now handling its colour laser
printers in a bid to help the company expand its market share from just
7%.“In SA our market share isn’t so good so we are accelerating our
investment,” said Kanji Wada, MD for printing solutions in Europe.The
move will bring it into direct competition with rivals Samsung, Lexmark
and Epson, which jostle for position far behind the dominant player
Hewlett-Packard.Konica Minolta did relatively well in 2004, when it won
8% of the market, but it has fallen back this year. Hence it is making
an extra effort to regain its place, said Tai Nizawa, its manager for
Europe, the Middle East and Africa. That means appointing Workgroup and
TVR Computers alongside its existing distributors Itec and Minolta.In
2004 when the global brands Konica and Minolta merged, Itec and Minolco
fought over who was to handle the new brand. Itec had imported Konica
products and Minolco imported the Minolta range. After an acrimonious
spat, both were retained and given equal access to the products.Now
they have extra competition, although Nizawa said the new distributors
targeted different customers. Itec and Minolta specialise in office
products, while Workgroup and TVR Computers sell to IT-focused
dealers.With four distributors now in place, Konica Minolta is planning
to open an office in Johannesburg soon. “We need a sales activity here
to go to the dealers with information and convince them about the
advantages of taking a Konica Minolta product,” Nizawa said.The company
runs branch offices in most of the countries it targets. In SA it is
too dependent on its distributors.Its increased interest in SA is
mainly due to the growth of colour printer sales. So far, fewer than
10% of the sales are colour, compared to 20% in more developed
markets.Until colour sales hit 5%, Konica Minolta judges a market too
small to focus upon.Growth should come quickly, Nizawa said. SA’s gross
domestic product is too high to justify printer sales only a tenth the
volume of those in Germany.“The laser printer market is 25000 units and
in Germany it’s 250000, but the growth rate is very high and picking up
quickly.”Konica Minolta credits HP with laser printer sales of $11,3m
in SA last year, in a total market of $23m. It also credits HP with
almost 11000 of the 25000 colour printers sold, while Konica Minolta
sold 1944 units.
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