Printer Sales: Canon, TVSE Gain

IDC’s
Printer Storeboard for October shows Canon and TVSE gaining marginally at the
cost of HP and Epson. HP had shipment problems while Epson’s worry was its
products. The market also saw a slump in sales as compared to the spurt in
September. This could be attributed to the festivals and holidays during this
period. The printer market declined by 33% and 38.5% in unit and value terms,
respectively, as compared to September 2000. However, as compared to 1999, the
printer market grew by 29.7% in unit terms.

The top five products accounted for 53% of the total printer sales through
channels, up from 47% in September. The leading model–HP’s DeskJet 640C,
whose market share dipped in September 2000–climbed again in October. It
accounted for nearly 28% of all printers sold during the month. However, HP’s
second-most popular model, the DeskJet 840C, which was bought heavily by the
resellers in September, showed much lower shipments. It moved out of the list of
top five popular models. Canon’s BJC 1000sp showed the most impressive
performance. Riding on HP’s and Epson’s problems, Canon’s model witnessed
a surge in demand, thus increasing its market share.

Channel sales

The shipment crisis continued to haunt HP, and Canon capitalized on it to
increase its market share to 7%, up from 5% in September. However, HP continued
to lead the market with an overall share of 39%. Also, Epson’s market share
came down as it faced problems both in sales of inkjet printers as well as in
dot matrix printers. TVSE, which had faced competition from Wipro in September,
retained its #3 rank in the overall market.

For Canon printers, September and October were extremely
good, as it encashed on the absence of HP and Epson inkjets. It accounted for
almost 15% of the total inkjet market in October 2000. However, HP continued to
dominate the inkjet market with a 55% share held by DeskJet 640C.

In the dot-matrix segment, Wipro saw its printer sales
slowing down, allowing TVSE to recapture its leading position.

In the laser market, HP faced competition from Panasonic, Samsung and Xerox
printers, which did much better in October, resulting in a slight fall in its
market share.

Leading technologies

Problems with HP’s DeskJet 640C and Epson’s 480C saw the
continuing decline of the inkjet category by a percentage point from its
September figure to touch 51% of the overall market. Dot-matrix printers saw no
change in their overall market share. Considerable decline in the contributions
of 24-pin dot-matrix printers allowed 9-pin dotmatrix printers to dominate
almost three-fourths of the dotmatrix printer market.

Laser printers saw a slight increase in their market share with those in the
"less than 8 ppm print speed" category accounting for nearly 62% of
the laser printers sold. There was a corresponding decline in the contribution
of laser printers in the "8-12ppm print speed" category.

Buyer segments

October 2000 saw a significant decline in demand from the
government segment with its share falling from 11% to 5.5%. The winner–the
home and small office segment. Together, the small business, small office and
home accounted for 71%, up from 65% in September.

A DQ Report