Gartner predicts rise in colour market

Gartner forecasts that the unit sales in India will rise from 12,70,378 in 2003 to 15,33,092 in 2008. In many developed countries, one-third of printing has moved to colour already. In India, the trend has just started.

The research firm mentions that colour-enabled applications will act as an accelerator for sale of colour machines.

Graphics organisation sales will either remain flat or decline, as more companies rely on in-house outputting, especially for on-demand printing needs. Production in colour will grow in double-digit figures.

Gartner also added that the sales of colour printers in Small Office and Home Office (SOHO) segment are increasing and this is primarily due to competitive prices and multiple function capabilities.

“The competitive pricing, and multiple function capabilities of inkjet multi functional printers (MFPs) encouraged SOHO and Small and Medium Business (SMB) customers to purchase Inkjet MFPs rather than single-function printers,” said Jackie Yeung, Analyst for Hardware and Systems, Asia/Pacific, Gartner.

Gartner announced figures on the Indian printer market for the period July to September, 2004. The total printers that were shipped in India were recorded at 3.49 lakh during the three months, which was a 3.5 per cent increase over the previous three months. Whereas in the same period in 2003, the total printer unit shipment increasing by 2.9 per cent.

The inkjet multifunctional products (MFPs) shipment recorded 57,400 units with a 52.1 per cent increase in units over the second quarter of 2004 and a 70.4 per cent increase in units over the same period in 2003.

The single-function inkjet printer market recorded 173,000 units in the third quarter by 0.2 per cent increase in units over last quarter.