General21.08.2009

Printer sales down 24.4% in EMEA region

Gartner reflects serious decline in EMEA region

The combined printer, copier and multifunctional product (MFP) market in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) totalled nearly 18 million units in the first half of 2009, a 24.4 per cent decline over first half of 2008 shipments, according to Gartner.

“The impact of the global recession has been detrimental for consumers, businesses and vendors respectively during the first half of 2009,” said Tosh Prabhakar, senior analyst at Gartner. “Banks and finance institutions continue to hold back on lending, limiting the availability of credit for investment in new hardware devices. With reduced budgets, businesses cannot invest in new equipment and continue to hold onto existing devices, which as a result is hampering new sales and impacting revenues for the print vendors. However, as vendors see hardware sales decline, there is an upturn in vendors widening their document management software and services capabilities to help businesses reduce and better manage costs.”

In the EMEA printer, copier and MFP market, each of the top-five vendors recorded a decline in the first half of 2009. The vendors worst hit by the global recession were Hewlett-Packard and Canon which saw their shipments fall 31.5 per cent and 25.8 per cent respectively.

“We foresee the market in the second half of the year continuing to show double-digit decline, and in the worst-case scenario could reach a 30 per cent decrease,” Mr Prabhakar said.

“Now that many end-user organisations have frozen their hardware spending, vendors are increasingly looking at alternatives such as managed print services and document-managed software as ways to increase revenue,” said Mr Prabhakar. “Vendors must sell services to businesses that will help them better control costs, save on running costs, reduce cost-per-page issues and consolidate devices.”

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