*NEWS*U.S. PRINTER / MFP MARKET WEAKENS

[Anonymous]

U.S. printer, multifunction market weakens
Shipments off on poor photo-printer sales, lack of bundling, Gartner says
LOS
ANGELES sep 06 — Sales of printers and multifunction products declined
during the second quarter in the United States as poor sales of photo
printers weighed and many vendors stopped bundling free printers with
purchases of new personal computers and digital cameras, an industry
researcher reported Tuesday.Shipments fell 4.2% during the three-month
period to a total of 7.7 million units, industry-tracker Gartner Inc.
said.

HP, of Palo Alto, Calif., easily continued to dominate
shipments of both ink-jet and page-printer shipments with a 56% and 43%
respective share of the markets. H-P and Japan’s Canon Inc. were the
only top-tier vendors to enjoy positive growth in the market for
ink-jet printers and multifunction devices, which also allow users to
do things like make copies and send faxes, the research firm said.”Poor
sales of single-function printers had a large impact on the market as
higher numbers of users have begun to print at retail stores as they
become more aware of their options,” said Camille Iorns, a senior
research analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner.Amid poor sales of
single-function printers, shipments of ink-jet printers and
multifunction devices fell 7.8% in the quarter to 5.5 million units
from 6 million a year earlier.Shipments of devices using page-printer
technology, such as laser printers, rose nearly 15% to 1.8 million
units, compared with 1.5 million in last year’s comparable quarter,
helped by the popularity of low-end black and white and color A4-format
devices.Gartner expects the market for multifunction color
page-printers to continue to grow as small and midsize businesses look
for the convenience of color machines to produce marketing material and
other business documents. To be sure, shipments of the devices climbed
49% during period over
the same quarter of last year.

DELL
saw its shipments of ink-jet devices more than halve during the period
after it moved to discontinue programs to bundle free, single-function
ink-jet devices with new PC purchases and as it refocuses its efforts
on the more lucrative multifunction ink-jet segment.
Round Rock, Texas-based Dell grabbed the No. 2 spot in shipments of page-printer units with a 9.3% share of the market.

Japan’s
Brother Industries Ltd.  enjoyed a 55% surge in its sales of
page-printer devices thanks to its increasing share of real estate on
retailers’ shelves, Gartner said. The advance helped Brother topple
Canon from the No. 3 position of top page-printer vendors.

U.S. InkjeT
q2 2006 Units    Market Share    Q2 2005 Units    Market Share    Growth
H-P    3,113,528    56.4%    2,838,207    47.4%    9.7%
Lexmark    715,761    13.0%    904,901    15.1%    (20.9%)
Canon    577,178    10.5%    505,448    8.4%    14.2%
Dell    442,750    8.0%    909,200    15.2%    (51.3%)
Epson    392,220    7.1%    602,270    10.1%    (34.9%)
Others    279,699    5.1%    227,825    3.8%    22.8%
Total    5,521,136        5,987,851        (7.8%)
U.S. Page Printers                    
H-P    753,254    42.7%    610,862    39.7%    23.3%
Dell    163,450    9.3%    163,100    10.6%    0.2%
Brother    134,391    7.6%    87,000    5.7%    54.5%
Canon    130,002    7.4%    122,116    7.9%    6.5%
Lexmark    98,963    5.6%    84,901    5.5%    16.6%
Others    483,141    27.4%    469,529    30.5%    2.9%
Total    1,763,201        1,537,508        14.7%

[Author]

September 21, 2006 at 9:51 AM