Print hopes rise except in Western Europe

Global IDC figures on hardcopy peripherals agree with rival research on EMEA region

Hardcopy peripherals sales are returning to growth worldwide but Western Europe is lagging the market

Latest figures on the global hardcopy peripherals market underline that printer shipments, focused on MFPs, are again rising worldwide – but not in Western Europe.

IDC’s latest worldwide quarterly tracker indicates that the quarter ending 30 April 2010 was the second consecutive quarter of year-over-year unit growth and the first since early 2008 where print shipments saw year-over-year growth in value terms – a rise of seven per cent to $13.8 billion.

Western Europe, the world’s second largest market for printers, was the only region that did not see a return to growth, seeing a decline in both volume and value of about two per cent year over year – buying 6.4 billion units worth $3.2 billion.

Ruth Flynn, research analyst at IDC, said: “It is encouraging to now see both units and shipment value growth in all the major segments of the hardcopy peripherals market and we believe this trend will continue [further] into 2010.”

Colour laser MFPs were the strongest category, expanding 25 per cent globally in Q1, followed by monochrome laser MFPs which were up 18 per cent. Leading MFP vendor was Samsung, Flynn said.

The research is backed up by recent figures from Context, showing that printer shipments for all EMEA in Q1 were up year-on-year half a per cent to 9.4m units, with MFPs volumes alone rising 14 per cent. Emerging nations were growing fastest across all categories, and overall HP retained its lead with Epson second.

Context: EMEA printer shipments on the up>> www.channelweb.co.uk/2263322