Printer and copier industry stages a comeback
May 19, 2010 by Steve HannafordPosted in: Dealers & Channel, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
Printer and copier manufacturers have taken it on the chin over the last few years, with a worldwide financial downturn, cost-cutting initiatives in every company and personnel reductions that inevitably led to outputting fewer pages. But things started looking a lot better in the last quarter.
For example:
- Lexmark, one of the few pure plays in the industry, reported a 61% year-over-year jump in profits along with an approximately 10% increase in sales volume
- Ricoh, another near-pure play, saw profits up over 40%
- Canon saw a 400% rise in profits and a 10% increase in income, with gains in both the camera and printer/copier areas.
- Xerox saw revenue growth of 33%. That is complicated by the just-completed acquisition of consulting services company ACS, but the company reported a moderate increase in equipment sales and a large boost in revenue from sales and services.
- Kodak showed a slim profit in the first quarter, a big boost over the steep losses of the previous year. It also showed a 31% revenue gain. The company attributed the gain to increased printer and print supply sales.
- European retail analysts report printer sales are up for the first time in two years.
All-in-all, great news for the industry after two years in the wilderness. For end users the good news is that these companies will be able to afford continued R & D efforts, allowing them to continue to make printers faster, greener and better.
DocuCrunch.com delivers the latest IT and Imaging news once a week to the inboxes of over 200,000 IT and Imaging professionals.
Click here to sign up and start your FREE subscription to DocuCrunch!
Tags: Canon, Kodak, Lexmark, printer and copier industry, Ricoh, Xerox
Loading ...
May 26th, 2010 at 9:32 am
I think the next evolution of the “MFD” (Multi-function Device) market is to support security features that are currently in-demand in the health and financial sectors:
- “Secure” transmit modes, requiring SSL or SSH based encryption
- Whole disk and / or File system encryption for internal storage
- User-supplied encryption keys for encrypting sensitive print / scan jobs, and prevent other users (or administrators) from accessing them
- DoD-compliant disk / file erase, either on a scheduled basis, or per print job for sensitive print jobs.
I think that a security-savvy MFD manufacturer would be a boon to heavily-regulated industries.