Xerox Discusses Printer Market Trends and Opportunities

WorkCentre 6605Xerox global marketing manager for office products, solutions, and competition, Siddhartha Bhattacharya, recently discussed with CRN eight different trends affecting the printers, copiers, and MFP market, including the black-and-white printer market, digitization, and BYOD. Although the market for these products is facing declines, the executive indicated that opportunities remain for solution providers.

The trends include:

  • Market Maturity – the printer market is only expected to grow at a 2.6% CAGR through 2018, according to InfoTrends, a trend that is especially relevant to the low end of the office segment.
  • Decline in Single-Function Printers – compared with the overall printing market, the single-function printer market is declining, as users increasingly prefer machines that can also perform copying, scanning, or faxing functions.
  • Black & White Shipments Remain Strong – while color printers are becoming increasingly popular, black-and-white devices continue to comprise 75% of shipments, a proportion that is only expected to drop to 70% by 2018.
  • Migration from A3 to A4 – there is a trend demonstrating a shift from A3 MFPs to A4 devices, which have comparable functionality as higher-end A3 units, and offer smaller footprints, and lower acquisition costs.
  • MFPs as ‘Document Hubs’ – scanning speeds will become increasingly important, and MFPs will need to become document hubs to remain relevant in the industry.
  • Application and Cloud Connectivity Growth – with the rise in cloud connectivity, MFP vendors will need to focus on cloud connection solutions and repositories, and find ways to monetize those opportunities
  • Rise in Mobile Printing – especially with the rising adoption of BYOD, opportunity will come from solutions that enable mobile workers to print from multiple apps across multiple devices.
  • Evolution of MPS – managed workflow services will be the next phase in the evolution of MPS.  Managed workflow services will focus on managing a company’s specific printing workflows.  Currently, basic print services is about twice the size of managed print services.

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