Demand for Multi-Functional Printers Soar as prices drop
The report uncovered that overall the South African MFP market increased by 60% to 439,165 units in 2005 from 273,928 units in 2004.
Tanja Naidoo, analyst at BMI-T, says that the market value also increased but at a lower rate of 21% to R1.9 billion in 2005 from R1.57 billion in 2004, "The switch from single-function to multi-functional devices continues to gather pace. The multi-function product has already overtaken the single-function printer especially in the home consumer segment; this is due to pull demand from the consumers and push strategies from vendors".
The main reasons for this disparity in growth rates include the large growth of low priced Inkjet MFPs and intense price competition in the laser markets that led to a reduction in unit sales value.
All three major technology areas of MFPs increased with double-digit growth between 2004 and 2005 as follows:
• Inkjets recorded 70% annual unit growth
• Mono-laser with 27.1% annual unit growth
• Colour laser units grew 98% annually.
"Another notable trend in the inkjet MFP market is that vendors are also starting to focus on photo-printing functionality. Vendors are focusing on ease of use and connectivity using PictBridge and media card slots to boost shipments.
Inkjet MFPs showed the highest growth rate among all technologies due to their competitive average selling prices which dropped significantly by 23.1% between 2004 and 2005. This contributed to high demand in the home and office environments, "adds Tanja Naidoo.
Mono-laser ASPs decreased by 6% and colour-laser ASPs declined by a remarkable 50.7%. Despite the continuous success of the MFP market, single-function mono-laser printers expanded by 34.1% to 143,523 units in 2005 from 110,768 units in 2004, while single-function colour laser printers grew by 47.6% to 26,560 units in 2005 from 17,990 units in 2004. Due to lowering prices, increased speeds and a reduction in the price/performance ratio single function laser printers will continue to perform well.
BMI-T forecasts ASPs to continue to decline over the forecasted period of 2005-2010.
"Furthermore, we expect that the overall choice for the office will be monochrome despite continued market pressure from the colour laser form factor, due to cost remaining an issue in some market segments," concludes Tanja Naidoo.
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