The overall Indian printer market grew by 18% to touch Rs 3,014 crore from Rs 2,552 crore in FY 07. This was despite a poor showing by the inkjet (single function) and Dot Matrix Printers. Used primarily by the government and banking domain, the DMP market for the second consecutive year showed a negative growth.

The saving grace came from laser printers and, more importantly, MFDs (both inkjet and laser). Both were on a growth trajectory with MFDs emerging as the clear favorite. Particularly, laser MFDs grew a whopping 65%, driven by the demand coming from first-time home users and the cost-sensitive SMB segment. Not surprisingly, therefore, there is a substantial leaning toward the multi function devices owing to a significant drop in price points. And this has resulted in a growing number of first-time home users opting for these MFDs with the lowest model priced as low as Rs 4,000. The reason being that with most home printers being significantly used for printing school projects, copying and scanning images and project reports, buying these MFDs makes complete sense to the parents, as they then do not have to run from pillar to post.

For instance, Canon whose market share has gone up from 7% in FY 07 to 10.8% this fiscal, in the MFD printer market, is aggressively wooing the discerning home-user. Affordability due to falling price points coupled with the photo printing functionality is becoming a vital factor since most of the home users/SOHO (small office, home office) are increasingly using CD writers, SD card readers, and an image screen.

MFDs Continue to Rule
The players managed to keep the action alive in the market led by Hewlett Packard (HP). The companys Imaging and Printing Group recently launched its go-to-market strategy targeting the Small and Medium Business (SMB) and roped in bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan as its brand ambassador. The Dream Bigger campaign, part of the go-to-market strategy, will feature Khan endorsing the companys products especially aimed at the SMB segment. The Dream Bigger campaign is part of the companys global $300 mn marketing campaign, called What do you have to say?

As per a report from AMI Partners, SMBs are expected to spend $1.3 bn on printing and printing supplies in 2008. Therefore, SMBs are clearly stealing the limelight with all major vendors drawing up plans to actively woo this cost-sensitive segment. HP is hoping to bolster its leadership status in this market considering that the SMB spend on printing is increasing by 20% every year. The company plans to enter 200 more cities over the next 12 months. HP is currently present in 400 cities.

In line with plans to tap the burgeoning SMB market, HP also launched two new printers OfficeJet J6488 AIO and Color LaserJet CM1312nfi. The Laser Jet MFPs are aimed at the SMB users who are looking to increase workgroup efficiency. The product has built-in networking and Instant-on technology. Moreover the SMBs can also access the online marketing tools and templates through which they can self-design a wide range of business stationery like document headers, business cards, and marketing collateral from a wide range of professional-looking templates created by leading designers such as Paula Scher. Interestingly, the CM 1312nfi also comes packed with an in house marketing kit. These products are part of HPs Avant-garde Print 2.0 strategy designed to accelerate the companys ability to capture a significant portion of the 53 pages forecast to be printed by 2010.

Xerox India, which underwent a major brand repositioning, took the lead in the global launch of their mono multi functional products (MFPs) ahead of rest of the world. Launched with the intention to make stronger inroads into the SMB community, the new range of MFPs includes products ranging from small, cost-effective A4 printers to feature-rich monochrome MFPs. The Xerox color MFPs for the A4 segment is targeted at small work groups of enterprises. This includes Xerox Phaser 6110 MFP and the Xerox Phaser 6115 MFP. Equipped with printing, scanning, and copying as basic functionalities, they also offer unique features like ID card copy feature which allows users to copy from both sides of an ID card onto a single sheet of paper.

	Dwindling Returns from DMPs Down the Years Revenues (in Rs crore) Units Shipped FY 06 517 495,770 FY 07 477 466,674 FY 08 389 431,065
	Vendor-wise Revenue Break-up Revenue (in Rs crore) FY 08 Epson 174 TVS-E 145 WeP 69 Others 25 Source: DQ Estimates
Dot Matrix might still have some dedicated votaries in government offices and PSUs, but its obviously fighting a losing battle as evident from falling shipments and revenues. Driven by demands from the government and the banking domain, Epson saw a marginal growth in its revenues from the DMP market

Even Lexmark launched its X342n Laser A4 MFD aimed at the small office segment. Copying up to 27 pages per minute with a time to first copy as quick as 12 seconds, the all-in-one also prints up to 14 pages per minute in black and 8 pages in color and offers color scanning, copying, faxing, and network printing all in one go.

Epson meanwhile is playing up on the cost factor since the cost of cartridge is the differentiating factor considering that the SOHO and SMBs do not print volume.

Realizing the value of low cost consumables, the company launched its Think campaign with a stress on ink. Under the campaign, a high quality ink cartridge would cost a fraction of other similar products. The campaign has resulted in the companys market share going up from 5.7% in FY 07 to 9.4% in FY 08, driven by the purchases from the student community and, of course, SMBs.

Here Comes Print 2.0
With Internet becoming all-pervasive, a large majority of the home users print directly from the Internet with consumers spending more time on the web than PC-based applications. Incidentally, most of the popular websites like blogs and travel sites have limited or non-existent printing capabilities. In an effort to improve upon this web-printing experience, HP is creating technologies that will make it easy to print content from the Internet in a useful format.

The three focus areas of HPs Print 2.0 strategy are: making it easier to print from websites; extend the companys digital content creation and publishing platforms for example, Snapfish and Logoworks, across customer segments spanning from consumers to enterprises; and deliver a digital printing platform that increases print speeds and lowers the cost of printing for high-volume commercial markets.

Retail Focus
With the user-driven photo printing market in India gaining prominence over the last couple of years, most vendors are now shifting their focus to this high-growth segment. And one of the first companies to realize this was Canon that set up Indias first brand showroom wherein the complete range of products would be displayed albeit in a non-selling environment. The lounge is expected to give an impetus to Canons brand awareness drive. The company has so far opened one consumer and business lounge in Gurgaon and Bangalore and will soon be opening one in Mumbai as well.

While Canon is focused on providing the before buy experience in the urban markets, Epson is going all out to tap the rural photo market, a market where no other company has dared to venture. Focused on tier-3 and 4 cities, the company has so far conducted photo workshops in 600 cities and has given training to photographers resulting in more than 20,000 photo studios installing Epsons Picturemate, a small easy to use printer that can even work on a lap. The Picturemate allows users to connect directly from digital cameras, producing photo lab quality 4R border-free photos. Moreover, users can also view and select images for print from its 1.5-inch color display.

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