THE BATTLE FOR COLOR SUPREMACY

[Anonymous]

The Battle for Color Supremacy
April
, 2007 — Three trends show up if one looks at the market figures of
digital color printers and presses over the past year. The first is an
explosion in sales in what may be termed the “Light” products. These
can be classified as color printers that have a performance of between
41 and 60 Letter size pages per minute and which cost less than
$100,000. The second is a drop in sales of “Mid-Market” products. These
are products with a performance from 41 to 80 pages per minute and
which cost under $300,000. The third, “Press” classification of
products are ones with a performance in excess of 60 pages per minute
and which cost more than $300,000. This area saw an increase in sales. 
The first “Light” classification is mainly made up of copier printers
with an inbuilt scanner. Infotrends reports sales in the USA in 2006 of
26,000 such products, and 60% of these were sold into the office rather
than production markets. The leading products in terms of sales in this
area of the market come from Ricoh and are sold either by them or their
OEM partners. Their 2006 sales have increased on 2005 figures by around
277%.

The first “Light” classification is mainly made up of
copier printers with an inbuilt scanner. Infotrends reports sales in
the USA in 2006 of 26,000 such products, and 60% of these were sold
into the office rather than production markets.

In Europe there
is a similar pattern with Ricoh having 42% 0f this market compared with
Xerox’s 38%. No doubt Xerox rue having their big selling Docucolor 240
running at only 40 pages/min at which speed it falls into a lower
category. If it ran one page/minute faster then Xerox would be the
leader in this market category. In the “Press” end of the market HP
Indigo claims top spot in both USA and Europe where its range of
product overall sold slightly more than Xerox’s iGen3. If however one
looks at this area of the market in a different fashion and instead
works on a speed of presses running at greater than 60 pages/minute
rather than a price factor of greater than $300,000, then Xerox is the
market leader with more than 50% of the market, followed by RISO with
25%, then Indigo with 12.3% and Kodak Nexpress with 4.7%.

The
reason I am putting all these figures down is to lead up to the battle
for market supremacy that will hot up following announcements being
made at OnDemand. The “Light” market will continue to grow
substantially.

 Konica Minolta up to now have been number three
in USA but this may well change as their bizHub Pro C6500 really starts
to sell both through their own channels and through the Océ channel.
Océ have OEM’d this product. This product that started to ship late
last year set a new performance standard for this market. Xerox however
is stepping up to the plate with their new Docucolor 260 that competes
on performance, and which I predict will become a major sales success.
Xerox are also upgrading their Docucolor 240 and 250 products with
slightly greater speed. We don’t know if Ricoh have anything more to
come with a faster version of their Aficio 5560 product.

Another product that could really stir up the market is coming from HP. This is the CM8050/8060 MFP product announced last week.

Another
product that could really stir up the market is coming from HP. This is
the CM8050/8060 MFP product announced last week. This is a 50 page per
minute inkjet color copier printer using HP’s Edgeline technology. It
is claimed to be targeted at the office market although one can see
that the Edgeline printing technology is quite capable of higher
quality printing for photographic image reproduction. I would not be
surprised to see future products using Edgeline be offered more into
the production environment. If the product is to be at OnDemand I would
certainly want to know more about its operation and whether it is a
real competitor to the established “Light” products. For example it
offers two color modes, professional and general office color. What is
the downside in terms of performance and running costs for professional
color? Also how much does it slow down to print an 11 x 17 inch page?

In
the “Mid-Market” there is to my understanding only one new product, but
this could make a significant impact on this area of the market and
perhaps take work away from the “Press” area. This product is the new
Kodak Nexpress M700. This is in fact the Canon ImagePRESS C7000VP print
engine that Kodak has taken on an OEM basis. It is linked up with the
latest version of the Kodak Nexstation digital front end, as well as
having some operator replaceable components. This product appears to
compete somewhat with the base level Nexpress 2100 Plus in terms of
performance and quality, although the 2100 Plus has a much higher duty
cycle. Obviously the price is important and this new Nexpress M700 will
enable Kodak to compete aggressively against Xerox’s Docucolor 5000,
7000 and 8000.

In the “Press” area of the market the new must
see product is also from Kodak. This is the Nexpress S3000 digital
color production press. This press is aimed to go head-to-head with the
Xerox iGen3 90 and 110 presses.
In the “Press” area of the market
the new must see product is also from Kodak. This is the Nexpress S3000
digital color production press. This press is aimed to go head-to-head
with the Xerox iGen3 90 and 110 presses. Up to now Kodak’s 2100 and
2500 Plus presses just lacked a little firepower to compete against the
iGen3 presses. The Nexpress S3000 is a development of the Nexpress
2500. Customers wishing to take advantage of the speed of this new
production digital color press can purchase a new Nexpress 2500 press
now with an available upgrade option to the speed of the Nexpress S3000
press.  The upgrade will be available for installation at the same time
the S3000 systems are available. The Nexpress S3000 digital production
color press is scheduled for availability in October 2007.
As can be
see the digital color printing market is heating up. Sales are
increasing at the upper and lower end of the market, and this is at
present impacting the “Mid-Market” area. Perhaps the new Nexpress M700
and the Canon ImagePRESS C7000VP coming to market will starts this area
of the market moving faster. In all areas all the suppliers are
expanding their sales. Whereas Xerox has dominated this market in most
segments for many years, they are now getting some very serious
competition. Xerox sales however are continuing to increase in numbers
but their overall market share percentage is falling. The next market
area we can expect to see developments will be in the continuous feed
area and this is where we shall see the big push into converting this
market from monochrome to color.

[Author]

April 20, 2007 at 12:33 PM