Smaller vendors lost ground in the first half of this year as HP strengthened its position at the top of the EMEA printing products tree, research has claimed.

The report from research firm Gartner reveals total EMEA shipments of printers, copiers and multifunctional products (MFPs) rose 2.2 per cent on H1 2007 and stood at 23.8 million. The Central Eastern Europe and Middle East and Africa regions enjoyed the strongest growth, with shipments increasing more than 14 per cent in both.

HP shipments grew six per cent on last year to more than 10.5 million, allowing the vendor's market share to rise to 44.6 per cent. Canon consolidated its position in second, with a 10.6 per cent growth in shipments swelling its market share to 16.4 per cent. Epson, in third spot, enjoyed a 22.5 per cent spike shipments and saw its market share leap more than two points to 12.9 per cent.

Brother, in fourth place, saw shipments decline 0.9 per cent on last year and its market share dipped a fifth of a point to 6.3 per cent. Samsung Electronics surged into the top five at the expense of Lexmark. Samsung's shipments increased almost a quarter and its market share rose from five to six per cent.

Tosh Prabhakar, senior research analyst at Gartner, said: “In the past 12-18 months Lexmark has been through a lot of re-structuring and consolidation, which has had an impact on the company’s performance."

Shipments for all vendors outside the top five fell 28 per cent to 3.63 million. Their accumulated market share also plummeted from 19.5 to 13.7 per cent.

Prabhakar added: "The results for the first half of 2008 showed single-digit growth across the print markets in EMEA, with second quarter results showing signs of an economic slowdown which could continue into the rest of the year."